The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear friends!

I would like to combine the two lectures today and tomorrow into one unit, so that today we look up at certain ideas and facts of the spiritual world, which we then want to summarize tomorrow in a certain world view that is particularly important for the present time.

Perhaps it will already be understandable to some today that we are currently living in a time that, for all those who, in one form or another, are participating in and living through this time, means a time that demands the development of the soul in a way approaches the soul in such a way that this way cannot easily be compared with anything we know from before, whether it be through our own human experience or through anything else we have been able to take in. One could say many things. One could express through many symptoms and images what this very special thing about soul development consists of.

Let's start with an image. You know – either you have heard it or read about it in lectures or in cycles of lectures – that over the years in which we have spoken to each other in the sense of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, I have often referred to the name Herman Grimm, to Herman Grimm as a spirit who, in the most eminent sense, has grown directly out of the development of German culture and has placed himself in this development of German culture and spirit. I can say, my dear friends, that when I spoke of Herman Grimm in the years up to 1914, it always seemed to me as if he were standing beside me spiritually, as if one could have had the thought: What does such a personality say, which - albeit in a completely different form than spiritual science makes possible - has participated intensively in German spiritual life? The feeling that such minds as Herman Grimm's — he died in 1901, at the age of 70 — such a feeling that such minds are standing beside you and quietly asking the question: What do I myself have to say about what is being brought forth from the spiritual life of humanity, be it in one form or another, and thus also in the sense of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science? This feeling, we have not had it since 1914. That is significant. Today, my dear friends, there is no possibility, from the outside, to ask oneself: How would a personality like Herman Grimm behave in the context of our times and in relation to anything that is taking place in the development of the spirit in the sense of this time? Of course, Herman Grimm would be almost 90 years old if he were still alive, but if he were still alive today, one must imagine that, from the thoughts that such a personality could have, from the way he way of experiencing the present life of humanity, it would hardly be possible for such a personality, to gain a judgment, a position to that, which has gone on in these three years since 1914 over the development of humanity.

Now we can certainly ask ourselves the question differently from our point of view, we can ask ourselves the question like this: How does such a soul, after passing through the gate of death and having lived through almost twenty years in the spiritual world, look down on us and on what is happening here on earth? We come to the conclusion that it does not look down so uncomprehendingly as it actually should have done, considering how alien everything is to what such a personality has felt on earth.

It is not without reason, my dear friends, that I draw your attention to such a thought. We have thus hinted at a thought that, to a certain extent, cannot be completely real to us, cannot be completely real, a thought that asks: How understandingly or unintelligently would a personality like Herman Grimm face the present, the external present? We know very well that this thought has no reality, namely because the soul, when it passes through the gate of death, continues to develop in a completely different way – and that is the reality – in a completely different way than it would have developed if it had remained in the body for years. But to pose the question of how such a personality would face the external present today, to virtually present us with this unreal thought, the unreality of which we can be well aware of, is good material for meditation. Above all, such thoughts have great significance for our spiritual life, and it can be said that they will gain ever greater importance for our spiritual life. More and more, people will have to become accustomed to thinking that takes into account factors such as putting oneself in the place of such a thought: this is how it would have been if such a personality had remained on earth.

It will become more and more necessary for our thinking to become more agile through such thoughts than it unfortunately is in this day and age. For what is around us, my dear friends, what humanity is experiencing with such terror, what makes our feelings so different, is largely connected with the development of thoughts – or one could also say with the lack of development of thoughts in recent times. If I am to correctly supplement the thoughts expressed earlier, I would like to say that since 1914, when I think of Herman Grimm and his school of thought and world view, I feel something as I used to feel when I looked back centuries to a personality who was centuries before us, to a personality who had long since become historical. But, my dear friends, it will only gradually dawn on humanity that these years are now in reality a much longer time than they are in terms of the external, physical course. We have actually - it can be said that it is not an exaggeration - we have actually lived through centuries in these three years. But, my dear friends, we must not be afraid to add something else to the concept that we have acquired over the decades within our anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, to the “we have lived through centuries”; we must not be afraid to add: in many, many respects, these times have not only been lived through, but in a certain higher sense they have also been slept through. What do we mean when we say that they have been slept through in a higher sense? These years contain so many possibilities for life and experience that for many souls these possibilities for life and experience pass by in much the same way as the events that take place around a person when he is asleep. They are there when he sleeps, but he does not perceive them.

I would like to speak to you today about some of the conditions of awakening in our time, of being awakened in our time, my dear friends, in these preliminary discussions. It will be necessary for humanity to see many things in a different light than it has been seen before. And so let us point out a basic fact, an important, important basic fact, which can bring our thinking in the direction, in the current, that we need to understand what is already preparing for many in this time. Let us look, my dear friends, at what is being said, thought, and expressed in words from various places around the world. From the outset, one must of course believe that when this or that is expressed in thoughts or in words, these words, these thoughts mean what – yes, I would like to say, what is found in the dictionary as the meaning of these thoughts, these words; one must believe this to be the case from the outset. But in many respects in our time this is not the case. And one should know that in our time it is not the case in many respects.

In our time, many things happen, and many highly significant things happen, that I would characterize as follows: Let us assume that two people come into a difference with each other, and we listen to the one person who is in difference with the other. He tells us: I came into difference with this person, I quarreled with him. We ask him why he has come into difference, why he is in conflict with the person in question. He answers us, “Yes, because this person has a bad character, because he has done this or that.” Of course, sometimes if you look into the facts, you may find something justified. If you are completely honest in looking into the facts today, you will very often not find something justified. The man says that the other man did this or that, or was such and such, and that is why he came into conflict with him. But why does he say that? Not because the other man is like that, but perhaps he says it for the same reason, because he needs to be reassured about the real reason why he came into conflict with him. What could this real reason be? This true reason can simply be that the soul life, the life of experience of this person who is telling us this, has developed in such a way that at a certain point in time it must discharge itself with a certain amount of hatred. Let us hold on to this, my dear friends, that this can simply be a primal fact of the soul of some human individualities. They grow up, they develop, and the soul develops in such a way that at a certain point in time it simply needs a certain amount of hatred. Just as a certain constitution, an abnormal constitution of the organism needs a fever, so a soul needs a discharge of a certain amount of hatred before itself, for the sake of what it has developed within itself. Because this certain amount of hatred is present in the soul, this soul mysteriously seeks someone on whom to discharge this hatred. But you can't say to yourself, without being frightened in a certain sense: I attack the person concerned because I have to discharge a certain amount of hatred. You have a sedative, a kind of anesthetic for the soul. This calming, this numbing of the soul occurs when one describes the other. The description may be true, the description may be false; but what it expresses is in any case not the real reason, but lies in the soul itself in the accumulated amount of hatred that must be discharged.

With this example, I wanted to show that anyone who is truly able to observe the world and makes an effort to do so can see today, wherever they look, how common it is to confuse cause and effect in our judgment of people. It is easy, my dear friends, to agree that in ordinary science, cause and effect are confused at every turn; but this confusion only occurs because in general human life there is a tendency to confuse cause and effect in the way described. Mankind, and I mean all of mankind, must learn to observe life and to live wisely. Without this observation of life, without this wisdom of life, my dear friends, which human beings must strive for, the complicated life that will come upon this earth cannot be lived through by mankind. For only through such striving will one come to feel with the necessary weight that which one needs to live. And in saying this, my dear friends, I may perhaps point out a certain fact that has occurred over the years of our anthroposophical endeavors within our previous considerations.

You can think back many years, a whole series of years, and you will remember that even in public lectures the question was quite often asked: How do repeated earthly lives relate to the increasing population of the earth? After all, the population of the earth is constantly increasing. If the same individuals keep reincarnating, how does this fact fit in with the increasing population of the earth? You will recall that I have given various reasons for understanding the apparent increase in the earth's population despite repeated lives on earth. But you may also remember that whenever this question came up, I always added a sentence to the other reasons I had given. I always added the sentence: “We shall wait, and perhaps the time will soon come when people will realize in a terrible way that the population of the earth will also be reduced in an extremely significant way by horrific events.” Of course, many will be able to remember these sentences. Many things could be remembered, but today I would like to remind you in particular that you will find in the cycle held in Vienna before the war, which dealt with life between death and new birth, how I tried to describe the general possibilities of the disease of social life across the globe. At the time, I even used the expression – it can be read in the cycle – that something like a social carcinoma is going through the world. The expression can be found printed in the cycle.

Such things, my dear friends, have been said to point out that much is going on around us that is as elusive to the ordinary consciousness as the tables and chairs of our bedroom are to us when we are asleep. And many, many passages in the lectures that have been given, they were given with the intention of touching souls, of touching hearts, to point out the utter seriousness of the forces that go through time in one direction or another. Because it does not help us, my dear friends, if we only try to gain, I would say in accessible concepts, some general ideas about the spiritual worlds. What we need, especially if these ideas that we gain are to be fruitfully integrated into our time, what we need is to acquire such concepts, such ideas from the experience of the spiritual world, that can intervene in reality in every area of life. But our present time is altogether poor, tremendously poor, in such concepts that can intervene in reality. And it is a concomitant of materialism, my dear friends, that the concepts that develop in the materialistic age have no power to intervene in reality in a directing, ordering, comprehending way. Man must learn to place himself in the world in a realistic way. This is only possible if spiritual science opens up an understanding for something without which understanding one knows nothing at all: for the relationship of man to the world.

If we are to take up the important things we have to say in this regard and bring them before our soul in the right way and with the utmost seriousness, we must start with three concepts that every religious mind today will inevitably see as the three most important concepts. We must start with the concept of the Father-God, with the concept of the Christ, and with the concept of the Spirit or Holy Spirit. Let us first consider today what spiritual science can say about the relationship of the human being to that which can be expressed by the three concepts of the Father God, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Today, we are indeed confronted with a world in which materialistic development has led to there being people who do not accept all these three ideas, the three concepts, I will not say, but do not experience them in their full seriousness, in their full depth. They will not be able to doubt, my dear friends, that many people today go through life without dealing with all their soul forces with these three concepts of Father-God, Christ, Holy Spirit.

What then does spiritual science have to say, based on what it can experience, about the just-mentioned lack in human souls, about this inability to deal with these three concepts? If you enter into the full meaning of our spiritual science, you will always be able to understand the following, because in what follows I would like to express a basic phenomenon for the soul's life in words that, I believe, express this basic phenomenon succinctly and precisely. I think that spiritual science can say from its point of view: the denial or misunderstanding of the Father-God is an illness; the denial or misunderstanding of the Christ is a misfortune of fate. Note the words carefully; I am using them in such a way that the matter is expressed very precisely. The denial or misjudgment of the Father-God is an illness; the denial or misjudgment of the Christ is an accident of fate for the soul; and the denial or misjudgment of the spirit is a blindness of the soul. I believe that anyone who combines the right approach with these three characteristics has much of what is needed to understand materialism in our time. I also believe that anyone who understands these three characteristics in the right sense has the key to understanding much, much more in our time.

Let us consider the first characteristic: the denial or misunderstanding of the Father-God is an illness. As an anthroposophically oriented spiritual scientist, I have to say this because, if the totality of the human being is organized in a healthy way according to the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of this being and the person does not physically, mentally or spiritually oppose themselves to allow their whole being to work healthily, then there is no possibility of not recognizing that which can be called the Father God. Every human being with a healthy organization, my dear friends, who does not allow prejudices to stand in his way – prejudices that have such an effect that everything organic no longer works properly – every human being, if he looks at the world in a healthy way and really applies his healthy spiritual power to this healthy view, comes to think of nature and the life of history as imbued with a Father-God. And the strange thing that offends today's materialists – the denial or misjudgment of the Father God – is not possible at all, except that something is not right in the human organization. So one can say: atheism is, under all circumstances, a real symptom of illness for spiritual science; something must be wrong in the human organization when atheism is present.

If people want to develop a relationship to human evolution, if they want to make sense of earthly development, then they have to be able to look at a certain point in time in this earthly development, when the mystery of Golgotha had to take place. But you can't say – just as you can say: that an atheist is actually more or less physically ill, one cannot say that anyone who does not find the Christ is ill. For finding the Christ is really something that is connected with a power to which the name 'grace' is fully applicable. The Christ must be found in such a way that He approaches the human being as an entity, so that the person can find His way to Him. Not to recognize God as such, to be an atheist, means — also in the physical sense — to be ill. But one can be healthy without finding the Christ. Therefore, not finding the Christ is not an illness like not finding God, but not finding the Christ is an misfortune of the soul. It is something that affects us, the failure to find Christ, that plunges the soul into misfortune. You can see this from the deeper meaning of the many discussions that have been held in our field for years: the soul needs the connection with Christ in order to find its way in the overall development of humanity. It was only until the Mystery of Golgotha that it was possible for the human soul to develop its entire life without coming into contact with the Christ. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ must permeate the human soul with His power, the Christ must connect with the human soul so that this human soul can find its way through the entire development of humanity. You can really find this within the development of spiritual life itself.

Just think of what a beautiful flowering of human spiritual life Greek culture was. People today have no real idea of what life was like for the ancient Greeks. And really, sometimes the only way to express one's admiration for Greek culture is to be negative. Spiritual science will first allow us to become positive again with regard to our admiration of Greek culture. Today, people take it for granted that they can read Sophocles or even Aeschylus, or perhaps even recite or act them. And so one is often asked: Is it possible to do anything with Aeschylus in terms of acting or reciting? It is possible if one has the right sense of Greek culture. If you have Aeschylus or even Sophocles as they exist today in modern languages as Aeschylus or Sophocles, then that is a shadow of the matter. Only the full, dense, reality-imbued concepts will be able to lie in the words again, when there will be [true] translations of Aeschylus or Sophocles or when the Greek words are to be understood. We must not forget that those whom we call intellectuals today, in the cultural life to which they go back in reality, only go back to Roman times. Our high school students may learn Greek, but they only learn Latin-Roman ideas. We have Roman law, Roman ideas in other areas of life as well. But Greece is actually a fairy-tale land. But it is deeply, deeply rooted in this Greekness, my dear friends, that we have been handed down the significant word of the Greek hero: Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows. Why? The soul concept of Aristotle answers that. No one has dealt so thoroughly with Aristotle's soul concept as the recently deceased excellent psychologist Franz Brentano. It can be said that spiritual research can agree with what Brentano discovered by philosophical means with regard to the soul and immortality concept of Aristotle, the Greek sage, for the reason that it is the Greek concept, but elevated to philosophy.

Aristotle was not initiated. The initiated Greeks knew something else about the immortality of the soul. But Aristotle was not initiated. He could only rise to that conception of the soul to which an uninitiated wise thinker of the Greeks could rise in the centuries before the entrance of the mystery of Golgotha. What is this conception of the soul and immortality? The ancient Greeks knew, they knew from an experience that people today no longer have, that everything they accomplish in the body as human beings is imbued with soul. The ancient Greeks did not speculate about whether their soul somehow lives, but they knew that when I move my hand, my soul moves with it. The ancient Greeks knew that the soul lives in everything they did, physically and mentally. But he had the idea that soul and body belong together internally. For him, it was a whole: soul and body. That is why Aristotle says: If they cut off one of your arms, then you are no longer a complete human being. If they cut off two of your arms, then you are even less so; if they take away your whole body, as death does, then you are no longer a complete human being. Aristotle speaks of human immortality, but he says, when man has gone through the gate of death, he is no longer a complete human being – he says this as a Greek – because he lacks the possibility of coming into contact with the environment in any way, which is only possible through the body. A person who has passed through the gateway of death is, for Aristotle, a maimed person. Although Aristotle still clings to the idea of immortality, within this immortality the soul lives in such a way that one is an incomplete human being. And that it can actually do nothing but continue this existence, I would say spiritually vegetatively, to reproduce, without coming into any contact with the environment. That is the concept of Aristotle, which could arise before the Mystery of Golgotha, when man was left to his own devices. And now think about what the concept of immortality would look like today if this had been propagated. Something new had to occur in human development to give the human soul the strength to come to the concept of immortality again: that is the Mystery of Golgotha. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the power of Christ has permeated the evolution of the earth. But it must happen to people in a merciful way that the power of their soul coincides with the power of Christ. Otherwise, misfortune would befall them, and they would know nothing of the soul that has passed through the gate of death except that it is only an incomplete, mutilated human being.

These are only preliminary remarks, my dear friends, who want to explain the word, want to explain the characteristic: misjudgment or denial of the Christ is a misfortune of fate for the soul. You can be healthy, but you must be unhappy in soul if you do not find the Christ. People must be brought to make clear distinctions regarding the most important concepts if life is to go on and what the future will demand of people is to be achieved. But it is precisely such ideas that some people, especially those who are otherwise close to us, shy away from.

You see, for someone who is a humanities scholar, there is a theologian – such as Adolf Harnack, for example – in terms of the inner structure of thought, the Father God, but there is no actual Christ. Harnack does, of course, introduce the concept of Christ, but it is not organically connected with what he thinks. And what Harnack says about Christ are basically only the attributes of God the Father. The most important attributes Harnack presents about Christ and His nature are only attributes of God the Father. It will be a fundamental requirement of our time that humanity finds the way to the real Christ, that the confusion between Christ and God the Father ceases. Otherwise, some might believe that they have the Christ, when in fact they only have God the Father. We only need to remember that some Christian mystics of the Middle Ages claimed that they had found the Christ by delving into their souls. There is no reason for them to say that they have found the Christ – they have only found the Father God. One can find the Father God in this way, but not the Christ. Take the term that I initially developed as a characteristic. When our soul appears healthy for the organism, when it properly comprehends itself in the whole person, then it says “Ex Deo nascimur” – “I am born of God”. This saying “Ex Deo nascimur” should be nothing more than an expression of the complete health of human nature. So just living your life in the right way, living a completely healthy life, allows this life to culminate in the recognition of the Father God: “Ex Deo nascimur”.

The good fortune of being able to connect one's own soul with the power of Christ brings the gracious possibility to know oneself beyond death, not as a mutilated human being, but on the contrary, not only as a whole human being, but as a human being illuminated in the illuminated spiritual world. Therefore, “In Christo morimur” – “In Christ we die”.

But in order not to recognize the spirit, blindness of the soul is necessary; this is now more than ever characteristic of materialism. For if the soul really sees all that is around her, if she does not pass by in sleep but sees what is around her in an awakened state, she is therefore not blind but sees awakened, then she sees the spirit at work in all things. Therefore, it must be said that to fail to recognize or to deny the Spirit is blindness of the soul. I particularly want you to grasp this distinction: Not being able to see the mysterious working of the Spirit in world events when the soul is blind comes from not being able to see the Spirit. Being unhealthy in oneself, so that the soul does not fully experience itself, causes atheism, the non-recognition of the Father-God. The recognition of the Father-God therefore comes from the healthy inner being, the recognition of the spirit comes from the alert observation of the world facts and world events around us. The materialist is only a sleeper to the world facts and world events around us.

If what has just been said is plausible – and it is well-founded in spiritual science – then perhaps the question will arise: Yes, but why has there been no real possibility for so long in humanity to develop complete clarity precisely about these three ideas? Why is that so? Yes, you see, that has to do with what I would like to call the historical “misdeity” — “misdeity”. Three is the number: mis-deity, just “misdeity”. I had to coin a new word, and you will soon hear that it is quite good to coin a new word for this idea. In the future, we will have to coin many new words. People will coin many new words in general, because the old words are no longer sufficient for what we need to understand now. And for what we have to say to each other now, we take the word “abuse”, where three is taken from the number three.

You see, my dear friends, in the presentation that I have given in my “Theosophy”, I have pointed out from the most diverse sides in a clearly noticeable way that in order to understand the entire essence of man, it is necessary to consider the human and also the worldly trinity of body, soul and spirit - body, soul and spirit. If we go back to those times when there was only an atavistic, dream-like consciousness, but within this atavistic, dream-like consciousness there was an ancient view of reality, we find everywhere, especially in the wisdom of the mysteries, the threefold division of the world and man into body, soul and spirit. For neither the world nor man can be understood otherwise if one does not grasp the meaning of the threefoldness of body, soul and spirit.

Now something strange has occurred. The Council of Constantinople took place in 869; with it, the spirit was actually abolished. Until then, there was widespread awareness that one must distinguish between body, soul and spirit. Among the things established by the Council of Constantinople, the most important is that one should not assume a difference between soul and spirit, but in the soul one should only think of a thinking and a spiritual part. And from that time on, throughout the entire world-developmental currents of the Middle Ages, it became necessary that one no longer distinguished the human being into body, soul and spirit, but only into body and soul, whereby soul and spirit were conflated with each other. It was heretical to speak of the so-called “trichotomy” since the Council of Constantinople in 869, after which it was only permissible to distinguish the human body and the human soul as a thinking and spiritual being, but not the threefold nature, the trichotomy into body, soul and spirit. This is tremendously significant. Those who are familiar with medieval philosophy know how some medieval philosophers struggle with the fact that they still had the feeling from ancient times that the human being consists of three parts. But the misappropriation had occurred since the Council of Constantinople, and anyone who wanted to claim or philosophically teach the trichotomy of body-soul-spirit would have been declared a heretic.

We are experiencing the highly remarkable fact today that the gentlemen who pursue unconditional science, exactly according to the Council of Constantinople, divide man into body and soul, and have no idea at all about the division into soul and spirit, except at most as something that is only a verbal skirmish. Look at Wundt and other enlightened minds of the present day; they all have the division into body and soul. That is why these gentlemen are also “presuppositionless”, because they have only the Council of Constantinople as a presupposition. They just don't know that they have this presupposition, which is why they call this philosophy “presuppositionless science”.

In certain directions, order and, above all, strength and world understanding are not created if one does not penetrate the secret of “dreiung” again, if one does not overcome the “missdreiung” that has been going on for centuries through the world view, through the view of humanity in general. The deep significance of the division of the human being into body, soul and spirit must be recognized again. But then, in precisely this most important and essential area, one will find the possibility of speaking concretely, imbued with reality, and expressing the truth, whereas in this area, the present time speaks not in terms of reality but in abstract terms; it believes that it is not speaking abstractly but is presenting the greatest real ideals of humanity.

It was at the end of the nineteenth century, as you know, that three ideals of humanity resounded through Europe and as far as Asia: fraternity, freedom, equality. And you know that within the European discussion - which today is no longer a discussion, but is being written in blood - that within this discussion the three words keep coming up that are supposed to say: But let us ask the question that must be asked in relation to these three words, let us ask it from a spiritual scientific point of view: if we simply talk in general terms that man or humanity must strive for fraternity, freedom and equality, we are dealing with an abstraction, three abstractions that are still under the complete influence of “misdeity”. Why? Man is in reality a trinity: body, soul and spirit, and as body, soul and spirit man lives with other people, who are also body, soul and spirit, here on earth together. This gives rise to a relationship between those forces within people that experience each other here in the physical world, and that comes from the fact that a person is incarnated in a body, a relationship that arises from the fact that we interact with each other in our bodies.

If we are to formulate an ideal for the future, a social ideal based on the truth that man is incarnated in a body, then it must be the ideal of brotherhood. From what man is for man, because man is bodily, from that must grow brotherhood, my dear friends; that is a social ideal for the future. But there is no point in speaking of the ideal of freedom from the same point of view. That would be to speak in the abstract. Speaking of the ideal of freedom only makes sense if one knows that only the spiritual relationship between people can be free. Just as people can only develop a social relationship according to the ideal of brotherhood if they are incarnated in the body, so too can this striving for the ideal of freedom only be realized if one understands how one soul can live from another. People become free as souls, people can become free as souls just as they can be fraternal if they are incarnated in bodies. Equality is an ideal that only makes sense if it refers to man as spirit. For the way we are placed in the world means that we are specialized in having one body and one soul. In terms of our spirituality, we are equal. Therefore, when we have discarded the body and with it the specialization of the characteristics, the saying that aptly characterizes the event comes to mind: In death, all men are equal, because they all become spirits.

The three ideals are meaningless when they are mixed up in “misuse”; they only become meaningful when these three ideals will sound through humanity in such a way that one can recognize them.

Man is body, soul and spirit; he must become brotherly according to the body, free according to the soul, equal according to the spirit. You see, these three abstract, unreal words will only make sense when spiritual science can find this meaning for them.

But why were these words spoken at the end of the 18th century? You see, you say words – I gave you the example on a small scale earlier – you say words, you believe you have come to a difference [with someone]; in truth it was hatred that has been unleashed. I have shown you that. And now we have the application of this small example to the great world-historical event. And so these words were also spoken in historical time, not to express what one thought one could find in these words, but to compensate, as it were, for something else. In a sense unconsciously, the three words came historically from the human mouth as if in a play, out of ecstasy. Out of full reflection, the words should have been: Fraternity from the body, freedom from the soul, equality from the spirit. One speaks the words half consciously, not fully consciously, for only spiritual science will speak them fully consciously. One speaks the words half consciously, like a person in ecstasy, a visionary speaks the words. But of course no one will understand this who swears by the supposed weight of these three words today. What will he say? He will say: Are you saying that these words were spoken in ecstasy? They are something that is most imbued with self-confident human reason. That is the belief that is poured out over the whole fact. Because why? Because in the depths of the soul of the times, when these words were spoken, Ahriman was lurking; and Ahriman is the one from whom these words really emerged. That is why they rashly croak.

And Ahriman needed to unburden his soul. Just as a soul usually unloads hatred, so Ahriman sought to unload himself. And just as a soul that is discharging would say that so-and-so did this or that to me, Ahriman had above all to bring out of his soul a certain impulse towards the material. And this was expressed not by letting people say — imagine what would have been the fate of people if they had had to say: We must not oppose materialism, we must now forget that there is a soul and a spirit, we must ascribe everything to the material; not to the body fraternity, not to the soul liberty, not to the spirit equality, but we must ascribe everything to material man; we must finally wipe the slate clean with this trichotomy.

That did not work. Therefore, the three things had to be conjured up as an ideal. And because Ahriman was at work in these, they came out under ecstasy. When a person does something like this, he numbs himself, he is in ecstasy. When Ahriman raves in him, then he can believe that he is saying the wisest thing, that he has complete control over himself and is saying something quite natural, while in fact he is saying nothing else that is perfectly apt for outer development, but which in truth is the life of an Ahrimanic power in the human soul.

We will take up these matters again tomorrow, for they are truly important if we want to understand the present time. And tomorrow I will have many more important things to say, especially with regard to the present time.

But now, following these discussions, allow me to say something that I would rather not say, but must say. We have fulfilled our task today. But it is necessary because I am obliged to observe certain measures for the near future within the Anthroposophical Society, and I need to give some motivation for them.

You see, my dear friends, spiritual science is something that must — I have motivated you from a wide variety of perspectives, quite objectively — that must become part of human development. It is not something that has an end in itself, like the program points of other societies, which one can be passionate about, but something that must become established because humanity itself, if it understands itself correctly, demands spiritual science. Only a few people still know this objectivity over time to observe what really presents itself as a yearning in human souls. But from certain laws, which are already understandable through spiritual science itself, my dear friends, what I have indicated in the most diverse ways is being realized more and more. And those who have heard me speak often know that I have often pointed out that the forces that would like to extinguish the light of spiritual science are indeed already at work. These dear friends who have heard me speak often know this for certain. For those who observe things, they have not come as a surprise, but they must still be treated in the right way.

Is it not the case that spiritual science is something that has to become established? In a sense, the Anthroposophical Society should be an instrument for spiritual science. It is an instrument that is difficult to handle, that must be readily admitted. But my dear friends, we must also truly face the fact that the Anthroposophical Society must be taken extremely seriously. Otherwise it would be better to have very small groups of friends in different cities trying to organize public lectures, and spiritual science would be able to fulfill its current mission for humanity in this way. But if there is an Anthroposophical Society, then it must be something real. Now, from certain backgrounds, it is extremely difficult for this Anthroposophical Society to fulfill its ideals, but on the other hand, it must not be ignored that one must look at what is necessary in this Anthroposophical Society in order to advance it as a society - I am not talking about spiritual science now, but about the society.

You see, above all it is necessary to acquire a clear and healthy judgment within the Society, also for what exists in society, and about the way society works outwardly, and to shape one's feelings and one's judgment of the world in the sense of this judgment. I am not saying that I demand this of society, but society cannot be what it wants to be if it does not strive for it. I have nothing to demand of society, I emphasize that, but it cannot be what it should be and wants to be if it does not strive for this healthy judgment of the world and life, if this striving does not really take root in society.

Look, let me start from a specific point: there are things that, as they happen, are only possible within our Anthroposophical Society, that would not actually be possible outside. Take the most blatant case of Heindel-Vollrath. What I mean is this: a Mr. Grasshoff applied for admission to the Anthroposophical Society a few years ago. That is, he was one of those people who are dragged into it by other members, sometimes in a rather unjustified way. But he had an urgent desire to become a member of our society. He became one, attended all the lectures, perhaps even spent some time in Hamburg, took part in public and branch lectures, but he also borrowed all kinds of individual lectures from all kinds of members and diligently copied everything down. So that when he said one day that he wanted to go back to America, he not only had all the public lectures in his head, but also pretty much everything that had been presented in our cycles and branch lectures.

Now you may say: Why was the person accepted at all? Yes, my dear friends, you cannot anticipate the future in such a case. You cannot – I must ask for forgiveness for using a harsh word – you cannot reject someone and say: I am rejecting you because later on you will be a bastard! You cannot give prophecies as a reason for rejection. This is a dilemma that occurs in such a society, and it makes it necessary for every member of the society to develop correct judgment.

So Mr. Grasshoff went back to America one day, took all his things with him and said that he wanted to spread our spiritual science in America. The dependency was so great that he himself said, before he took leave and made the solemn promise, that the way he would represent spiritual science would be a thoroughly honest one. The matter went so far that he said at the time: How should one actually translate “Rosicrucian worldview” into English? Back then, it was very difficult to translate “Weltanschauung” into English, and we still discussed the “Rosicrucian World Conception”. Except for this word, it is from me, which is a word that had not been used before: “Rosicrucian World Conception”. So he packed this word into his suitcase and left.

What did he do? He sat down in America and wrote down in his own way what he had found in the lectures and in the printed books, changing it in his own way. But there is nothing in his books that he did not get here. But in the preface he wrote the following: He had learned many things in my lectures that he wanted to share in America, but it was not enough, and after he had listened to the lectures here - here with me, with us - he received a call from a wise master down there in Transylvania, in the Transylvanian Alps, who introduced him to the deeper secrets of the matter. Therefore, he would not only give what he had from me, but also what he had received from that wise master there in the Transylvanian Alps. But if you check what this wise master told him, it is what he copied here from the cycles, lectures and branch lectures. It is all worked into it. The book was published in America.

Well, that could still be tolerated, right? But it didn't stop there. This book was translated into German and published years ago in German translation as “Rosenkreuzerische Unterrichtsbriefe” under the aegis of Mr. Hugo Vollrath years ago, and on the bookplates and in the preface, you can read that some building blocks of this Rosicrucian worldview did indeed come to light here in Germany, but they were impure; they first had to be purified by the bright Californian sun. That is where Grasshoff, who later called himself Heindel, later lived. So not only was it possible in America, but the things were retranslated into German. That is possible. This is a scandal, my dear friends, and deserves to be made known. I have even mentioned it in public lectures. It has not become known. But if the Anthroposophical Society wants to fulfill its task, it is important that our cause be presented to the world in the right way; that it is not just said by me, but that one also gains the right attitude towards these things. Of course, it is wonderful and desirable to hear lectures and read cycles about spiritual things, but for that we do not need an Anthroposophical Society. The Anthroposophical Society must work and develop a field of activity.

Of course, where such things can develop, things move forward. What have we experienced recently? Recently we have seen that a man who for a long time truly appeared to be the most honest of the so-called followers of anthroposophy, was a member of the Anthroposophical Society who called himself true, he was so true that he even wrote a book that was published by the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House, and then he wrote a small booklet “Who was Christ?” In this booklet, he used some material that is also from the Cycles. Now, that might still be acceptable, but Dr. Steiner did not think it was quite right to introduce it. I did not take a stand on the matter, but Dr. Steiner did not think it was right – and she is the one who runs the Philosophical-Anthroposophical Publishing House – that if you take things from the cycles and then say: some hints have been given, but I must first explain them clearly. For these and other reasons, the booklet “Who Was Christ?” had to be rejected. Post hoc ergo propter hoc - after a thing, therefore because of a thing. This is often a disputed dictum, but I believe it is often a very correct dictum. What became of this man who had lived among us as a loyal anthroposophist and who had sought to find his own place for his work? This man became the most vehement and swollen opponent because his little book was not accepted by the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag. That is the only reason. All the foolish talk he has developed about alleged contradictions in “Psychische Studien” is just added. And one does not do justice to the matter if one believes that one has to go into this talk, but one has to know, in order to see the whole enormity, that a person who has last sought to publish his writing in the Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag posophical publishing house, and thus had every intention, had his writing been accepted, to remain an anthroposophist as he had been before, that he would become a person producing defamatory writings if his writing were rejected. One has to - forgive me - found the Anthroposophical Society in order to experience such things, because otherwise this cannot actually happen with such intensity.

Now don't misunderstand me! Opposing writings must also appear, I will have no objection to that. Please do not take my words as if spiritual science should be afraid of opposing writings. They may appear, but they should be objective. But there is nothing objective here. This will become immediately apparent when we see what ground the whole matter is taking. Everywhere it is actually only seemingly a matter of all kinds of refutations, I might say, of contradictions that are pointed out; in truth, it is a matter of spreading gossip and scandal, most of which is even invented, but sometimes presented with great sophistication. So this is not said because of factual opposition, but because the aim is not to engage in a factual fight – that is far too uncomfortable – but because the aim is – by virtually driving the anthroposophical movement into scandal, into defamation, into slander, into inventing facts that have absolutely no connection with reality - to make this Anthroposophical Society impossible.

But so much can happen in the realm of this Anthroposophical Society! A man from a town in central Germany once wrote to Dr. Steiner: He is now at a particular point in his soul life, he does not know what to do next. He would like some advice, should he become involved in a business or should he seek his new soul path in some other way. Since he had been informed that it could not be our task to give advice on marrying into a family, he turned up one day. He made himself noticed by reciting Schiller's “Cassandra” with furious emphasis, although he had no idea of any art of recitation, and unleashing it on the unsuspecting members of the Anthroposophical Society. In this way he made himself felt in the Society; to individual members he made himself felt by, as I was credibly told, energetically exercising the will to marry the young girls of the Society.

Now, of course, such things happen in the course of the flow of anthroposophical life, but sometimes they take on even more forms. One day the good man was seized by the urge to be a genius, a painter genius. He was seized not by the urge to become a genius, but to be a genius, not by the urge to become a painter. If anyone expected him to become a painter, he took it as an insult.

He couldn't paint, couldn't do anything, but he wanted to be a painter. He moved to Munich, and we tried in every way – didn't we, to a certain extent anyone can become a painter – to get him teachers. He has been supported, but we just couldn't make him a genius. And this whole matter developed into what is now called the “Bamler case”, which is supposed to characterize the entire disgrace of the anthroposophical movement with invented stuff about exercises causing bruises on the skin and similar things. These articles are accepted with open arms, and not only that, by busy editors, by editors who are sometimes of such a nature that they make any old remark, and someone writes to them – I am only telling facts, a correct judgment can only be based on facts and I am accustomed to telling only facts —, someone wrote to the editor: Well, haven't you read the essay in your own magazine, which should have told you that this [illegible] is completely unjustified [illegible]? The editor replied to the person concerned: “Yes, do you think that I have time to read all the essays that are printed by me?”

Well, it is not about that when someone enters into a factual discussion, but rather that one wants to avoid it. For spiritual science has no need to fear factual discussions. One wants to collect all that is simply invented today from such things. For the things that are invented are indeed enough to make one want to climb up the walls – and are partly invented in the most obscene way.

I do not want to tell you obscenities today, which are already being printed, but I do want to give you a small sample of what is possible in this day and age; I will give you a sample that is sweet but no less ridiculous. I could come up with very thick chunks that would taste quite different, through which, in order to drive them into a scandal, anthroposophy is to be made impossible. I would like to give just a small sample. There is a nice / gap in the transcript] essay that contains things that are all made up. What matters is that they are made up. And what is not important is that attention is drawn to the fact that the personality who wrote this did so in a mentally ill state; that is not important, but that the things are objectively untrue. It says: Dr. Steiner often explained the Lazarus miracle to his students, the transformation of the human being through the Lazarus miracle. Dr. Steiner sent chocolate to a certain person who had to be taken to a sanatorium “to thicken the blood.” This chocolate had been chosen to bring about a transformation in the person in the sense of the Lazarus miracle.

There you have an example – as I said, I have chosen one that is still the most appetizing, but that does not make it any less likely for you to invent. But there are editors who write: “Even a healthy person could be put in an asylum because of such craziness.” - So you can imagine: someone thinks that Dr. Steiner wrote about the Lazarus miracle; Dr. Steiner wants to perform the Lazarus miracle by sending chocolate biscuits - now imagine during the war - to a sick woman in the sanatorium to send chocolate biscuits to thicken the blood so that the Lazarus miracle will take place. This will be printed today, and an editor can be found who says: “Through such follies, even a healthy person could end up in an insane asylum.”

Yes, it is ridiculous, but the very campaign that is starting today is characterized by the fact that on the one hand it is ridiculously ridiculous and on the other hand it is downright spiteful. For it has become possible for articles to appear in the “Psychische Studien” with comments by the editor that ridicule the anthroposophical movement and drive it into scandal. It has become possible for such an article to appear that one would have to experience first hand to believe that such things could appear. For against the prevailing attitude, everything that has been written in the scandal press so far does not come up. For to proceed in such a way would have been avoided until now – I will say, if not towards a man, then at least towards a woman, but that has also become possible.

And it has become possible that just people who cannot be rejected when they enter society – because the one who wrote this was, of course, a member of the Anthroposophical Society – because one cannot anticipate the future, one cannot reject them; it is possible for these things to happen. It is possible, my dear friends, that now, in the most incredible way, what really did not happen to my pleasure and at the request of the members, that the most incredible gossip and slander about the personal relationship between me and Dr. Steiner and the members – that all of this is being dragged into gossip and slander and – not to speak with my own words, but with the words of a friend who was at the Nuremberg lectures and heard the matter – into meanness. Not only did the Imperial Privy Councillor and Professor Max Seiling explain quite tastefully, despite the fact that he had come repeatedly over the years and did not even request brief private discussions, and now declares: the cycles would have a better style if they were corrected by me, instead of having private discussions with the members. Nevertheless, the imperial court councilor Professor Max Seiling knows very well how the cycles were wrested from me, because it was not my wish that they be published, but it was done out of two necessities: it was desired by the members, although I said there was no time to review them; on the other hand, the mischief that was done with the rewritten lectures. The rewriting went so far that one day we came across a lecture that had been rewritten. This transcript actually stated that I had said in a cycle that prostitution had been set up by the great initiates. This is just a sample of the things that were present in the private transcripts that were passed from hand to hand.

It was necessary that at least once the matter was taken in hand, that at least the follies that were passed from hand to hand in society in the form of private notes should cease. Nevertheless, the imperial court councilor Seiling had the nerve to say: if the private conversations had not taken place, then these lectures - while he was calculating and indicating prices - could have been corrected. All this is possible, other things are possible that I do not want to mention for the time being. All these things are possible, but it is precisely the private conversations that lead to things being invented, purely invented, and that are now beginning to be used because people do not want to fight objectively, that are now to be used to proceed in the most unobjective way against what the anthroposophical movement is.

What has been said over the years, and how have I emphasized: Those who know me know how opposed to everything sectarian what I have in mind is. And where is there more of a tendency towards it than in our society! I need only mention one external manifestation. We once wanted to travel to a course in Helsingfors. We arrived at the Stettin train station and found, walking on the other platform, a whole company of female members - I don't want to say anything against the female members, it could also be male members - so we saw a whole bunch of ladies with purple bishop's caps in incredible costumes heading for the Helsingfors train. When the ladies got off in Helsingfors: One should have seen the fright that the poor Helsingfors Anthroposophists got. They no longer had any sense of the aesthetics of these bishop's caps and so on, but only the sense of accommodating the ladies in such a way that at least the rest of the Helsingfors population would not notice that they belonged to the Helsingfors Anthroposophists.

But this is only an outward sign of the urge for sectarianism. Again and again, people on the outside have to hear: This is a society built on authority. They do everything that Dr. Steiner wants. I don't think there is a society where it is like ours, where if something is to happen according to my opinion, it certainly won't happen. I do not consider myself the master of the Society, so I cannot demand that what I want should happen; but I can demand one thing: that I should not be asked. But on a small scale it has been shown time and again: some lady or man, it can also be a gentleman, feels the need to justify to her husband or a friend why she is traveling on a cycle. What does she say? “Doctor Steiner said so.” — What do I care whether she goes to the cycle or not? — ‘Do you have anything against it?’ she asks me. — I can't have anything against it, that would be an infringement of human freedom, which I respect and value. But then one says: ‘Doctor Steiner said I should travel to the cycle.’

Well, these are the kinds of insinuations that make it necessary, after years of talking about these things, to take measures once, not to take them, but because they are necessary, even if they are as difficult for me as they are for some people, but to emphasize the seriousness that is necessary in these measures.

Firstly, I now have to stop having private conversations with members for the time being. I can no longer have private conversations with members. I can only say that I am as sorry as anyone can be, but you will have to turn to those who made this necessary. It was not I who made it necessary.

The second thing is – but I ask that the one not be told without the other, the one is not right without the other – the second thing is: I explain to everyone who has ever had a private conversation with me that they can tell everything that has been said in these private conversations or has otherwise occurred, that they can tell everything completely, as far as they themselves want. I urge no one not to tell anything, insofar as he himself wants, that has ever occurred in such conversations. Nothing need shun the light of day if it is truthfully communicated.

So first, the private conversations must stop; second, I authorize everyone, insofar as he himself wants, to tell everything that has ever been spoken or occurred in any private conversation. It remains to be seen whether, under the seriousness of these measures, one or the other may yet be achieved. For my part, I am completely convinced that those of our dear members who are seriously and with dignity seeking that which must now be sought through spiritual science within humanity not only understand these two measures, but also approve of them and find them necessary. For those who seriously want to advance esoterically – just give me a little time, and even without the private conversations I will find ways and means to ensure that no one is held back in their esoteric development; a fully valid substitute will be found, it just has to be created first.

I have only given you a small part of the characteristics of the campaign as it is now being launched, but something must be done, because it is not acceptable to be caught between personal spite and ridicule. After all, it could be said in Munich: One of the most serious attacks is yet to come, that of Goesch.

Yes, my dear friends, that can be said, even though Goesch's attack is typical of the stupid and ridiculous on the one hand, because he engages in magical effects of handshakes and the like, and on the other hand, just in mere spite.

Perhaps if we just have a little awareness / gap in the transcript] some things can be improved. I know that those who take the Anthroposophical Society and spiritual science seriously will understand me.

Dr. Steiner:

My dear friends!

We are in the middle of the reports by the General Secretaries and the representatives of the groups working in all kinds of places outside Dornach. In a moment we shall continue with these reports. But first I would like to speak a few words in the midst of these reports, words to which I am moved by what has been said in such a satisfactory way by these speakers. From what we have been told we may gather how very devoted is the work being carried on out there. We may add what we were told yesterday to the names I allowed myself to mention the day before. There, too, despite the ruins on which we stand, we may see what can encourage us during this Conference not to be pessimistic in any way but rather to strive actively for a genuine optimism.

During this Conference we must everywhere, in every realm, consider the activity of building-up rather than the activity of dismantling. So today, early on in the Conference, I want to suggest that we give it a certain definite direction. During the meetings of members over the next few days there will of course be opportunities for discussing various matters. But today, early on, I want to say the following: As we saw in the necessary content of the Statutes, we have to connect total openness with the Anthroposophical Society. Anything less, dear friends, is not permitted by the signs of the times. The present age can no longer tolerate any tendency towards secrecy. This presents us with a fundamental problem which we shall have to solve.

By this I do not mean that we shall have to discuss it a great deal during the Conference, for it is in our hearts that this fundamental problem will have to be solved. We must be absolutely clear about the fact that our Society, before all others, will be given the task of combining the greatest conceivable openness with true and genuine esotericism.

At first under the obstacles and hindrances of those terrible years of the war, but then also through all kinds of inner difficulties, we have indeed experienced the establishment of this problem in every direction. Indeed lately no meeting within the Anthroposophical Society has taken place which lacked, as it were, the backdrop—though unnoticed by many—of this problem: How can we combine full openness with the profoundest, most serious and inward esotericism? To achieve this it will be necessary to banish from our gatherings in the future anything which smacks in any way of the atmosphere of a clique. Anthroposophy does not need the atmosphere of a clique. When hearts truly understand Anthroposophy they will beat in unison without the need for heads to knock together. If we solve this purely human problem of letting our hearts sound in harmony with one another without the need for our heads to knock together, then from the human side we shall have done everything necessary, also in the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society, to prepare for the achievement of the things that have been depicted.

We must achieve these things; we must reach the point at which we can feel in all our deeds that we are connected with the spiritual world. This is the very aspect which must be different in the Anthroposophical Society from any other possible association in the present time. The difference must be that out of the strength of Anthroposophy itself it is possible to combine the greatest conceivable openness with the most genuine and inward esotericism. And in future this esotericism must not be lacking even in the most external of our deeds. There is in this field still a lot to learn from the past ten years.

What I am saying is also related to our responsibilities. Consider the following, my dear friends: We stand in the world as a small Society, and this Society has a peculiar destiny at present. Even if it wanted to, it could not reject this characteristic of openness which I have been emphasizing so strongly. It would be unable to reject it. For if out of some leaning of sympathy we were to decide today to work only inwardly with our groups, which would of course be very nice, if we were not to concern ourselves with the public at large, we would discover that there would soon be an increasingly inimical concern for us on the part of the public. The more we fail to concern ourselves with the signs of the times, the more will be the inimical concern for us on the part of everything that can possibly be against us. Only if we find the path, only if with courage we find the straight path to what we should do shall we succeed in navigating the ship of the Anthroposophical Society through the exceedingly stormy waves which surge and break around it. What we should do is the following: As a small Society we face the world, a world—you know the one I mean—which actually does not love us. It does not love us. This is a fact we cannot alter. But on the other hand there is no need to do anything on purpose to make ourselves unpopular. I do not mean this in a superficial sense but in a deeper sense of which I speak from the foundations of occult life. If we ask ourselves over and over again what we must do to make ourselves better liked by this circle or by that circle in the world, by any circle which does not like us today; if we keep asking ourselves how we should behave in this field or in that field so as to be taken seriously here or there; if we do this, we shall most certainly not be taken seriously. We shall only be taken seriously if at every moment in whatever we do we feel responsible towards the spiritual world. We must know that the spiritual world wants to achieve a certain thing with mankind at this particular moment in historical evolution; it wants to achieve this in the most varied realms of life, and it is up to us clearly and truly to follow the impulses that come from the spiritual world. Though this might give offence initially, in the long run it is the only beneficial way. Therefore we shall also only come to terms among ourselves if at every opportunity we steep ourselves in whatever impulses can come out of the spiritual world.

So now, having given these indications, which I shall bring to completion over the next few days, I once more want to repeat before you at least a part of those words which were spoken to you yesterday in accordance with the will of the spiritual world. May they stand as an introduction in our souls again today as we enter into our discussions.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling in depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.
Soul of Man!

Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I.
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.

We can work rightly with words such as these, which are heard coming from the Cosmic Word, if we arrange them in our own soul in such a way that they cannot depart from us again. And it will be possible for them to be so arranged if, amongst all that has resounded, you first highlight that part which can give you the rhythm. Dear friends, let me write down here first of all the part that can indicate the rhythm:

In the first verse: Spirit-recalling,
in the second verse: Spirit-awareness,
in the third verse: Spirit-beholding.

Contemplate this in its rhythmical connection with what is brought about in the human soul which is called upon, the human soul which is called upon by itself, through the words:

Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I—,

consider the rhythm linked with ‘spirit-awareness’ when you hear:

Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I—,

and the rhythm linked with ‘spirit-beholding’ when you hear:

On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing—.

Take in this way each phrase so that it can only stand as I have written it here. Take what comes rhythmically out of the Cosmic Rhythm: ‘own I within God's I’, ‘own I in the World-I’, ‘own I in free willing’. And take what rises up from ‘comes to being’ to ‘unite’ to ‘bestow’, where there is the transition to moral feeling. Feel the connection with ‘spirit-recalling’, ‘spirit-awareness’ and ‘spirit-beholding’. Then you will have in the inner rhythm what it is during these few days that the spiritual world is bringing to us to raise our hearts, to illumine our thinking, to give wings and enthusiasm to our willing.

I now have a telegram to read to you: ‘Christmas greetings, best wishes, Ethel Morgenstierne.’ And now may I ask the representative of Honolulu, Madame Ferreri, to speak.

Madame Ferreri reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of Italy, Baroness de Renzis, to speak.

Baroness de Renzis reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I perhaps suggest that certain questions raised here, such as that of accepting applications for membership on the basis of correspondence only, and similar matters, shall be discussed later when we consider the Statutes.

Dr. Steiner: The Duke of Cesaro will also give a report concerning Italy on behalf of the Novalis Group in Rome.

The Duke of Cesaro reports.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask Fräulein Schwarz to speak on behalf of the other Italian group.

Fräulein Schwarz reports on behalf of the group in Milan.

Dr. Steiner: Now would the representative of the work in Yugoslavia, Herr Hahl, please speak.

Herr Hahl reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I ask the representative of the Norwegian Society, Herr Ingerö, to speak.

Herr Ingerö speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask the representative of the Council of the Austrian Society, Count Polzer, to speak.

Count Polzer speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask the representative of the group in Porto Alegre in Brazil, Dr Unger, to speak.

Dr. Unger: Allow me in a few words to carry out a commission which I was most delighted to accept. For quite some time we have been corresponding with friends over there, mostly from Germany, who had emigrated and had begun to work there anthroposophically. Herr Brandtner in particular has been writing lately. He has made great efforts to get something going in Porto Alegre. And connected with this, work is also going on in other South American towns which will gradually be co-ordinated so that independent centres from which to work may be set up there too. For this purpose Herr Mayen from Breslau was asked by the friends over there to go out, first of all to Rio. He will gradually take on work in a number of towns. I have been particularly asked to give voice to the sympathetic interest of the friends over there. Everything that comes to us from over there expresses the most intimate interest in all that has to do with Dornach and whatever continues to come from Dornach. As often as possible someone comes to Europe and we hope most fervently that anthroposophical life may soon start to blossom there in the most intensive way. Just as I bring greetings from our friends over there, so I hope that when I report back to Porto Alegre I may also be permitted to send them from here our good wishes for the prospering of the work in Porto Alegre.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Swedish Anthroposophical Society, Fräulein Henström, to speak.

Fräulein Henström reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society, Herr Aeppli, to speak.

Herr Aeppli reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Council in Czechoslovakia, Dr Krkavec, to speak.

Dr. Krkavec reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the other representative of the Council in Czechoslovakia, Dr Eiselt, to speak.

Dr Eiselt reports.

Dr. Steiner: This brings the reports to a close. I believe I may be allowed to say that you are all, with me, exceedingly grateful to those who have given them. For they enable us to see that we have a foundation on which to base our new work, since now we know how much truly great, devoted and varied work is being done and has already been done in the Anthroposophical Society.

Now I should like to move on to the third point on our agenda, consideration of the Statutes. First the Statutes must be read out. Though you all have a copy, I would nevertheless like to ask that they be read out once more, so that we can then commence the discussion of each point. Would Dr Wachsmuth now please read the Statutes in accordance with point three of our agenda.

Dr. Wachsmuth reads out the Statutes of the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Steiner: As you will have gathered from various remarks I have made, it would be really good if on the one hand our meeting could be allowed to run as freely as possible amongst its individual members. However, on the other hand, if a proper discussion is to take place, it is necessary for us to be quite strict in conducting the debate. So please take this not as pedantry but as a necessity applicable to any gathering. Today we have run out of time, so I would ask you that we continue this meeting tomorrow after Dr Wachsmuth's lecture. Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock Dr Wachsmuth will give his lecture. Then we shall break for a quarter of an hour before continuing the meeting. At this meeting I should like to conduct the proceedings as follows. Not in order to be pedantic but so that we can be as efficient as possible there will first be a kind of general debate on the Statutes, a debate in which first of all the whole attitude, meaning and spirit of the Statutes in general is discussed.

Then I shall ask you to agree to the Statutes in general, after which we shall open a detailed debate in which we take one Paragraph at a time, when contributors will be asked to speak only to the Paragraph under consideration. There will then be a concluding debate leading to the final adoption of the Statutes. This is how I would ask you to proceed tomorrow when we discuss the Statutes.

Now I have to announce that our Conference continues this afternoon with a eurythmy performance at 4.30 and my lecture at 8 o'clock this evening. Tomorrow at 10 o'clock we shall hear Dr Guenther Wachsmuth's lecture in the field of natural science about the face of the earth and the destiny of man. Then after a quarter of an hour's break we shall continue with this meeting.

I also have several more announcements to make. As I had to stress earlier, before we began our meeting, it is quite difficult, because there are so many of us—and it is of course wonderful that there are so many dear friends here—to hold this gathering together. You cannot tell, just by coming to the meetings, how difficult it is. Of course we are deeply sorry that the primitive quarters here are causing such discomfort and so many problems for our dear friends. Nevertheless, I have to ask that in future not more than three seats are held by any one person. I have to say this because it has happened that whole rows of seats have been held by a single person, and this has led to innumerable discussions with those who have come in later.

Then I should like to remind you of the wish we expressed earlier that the two front rows be reserved for those dear friends who are either disabled or deaf or need special consideration for any other reason. If there are any seats left in these two rows, which is sure to be the case, then please leave them free for the General Secretaries of the different countries and for the secretaries who might be accompanying them. It will become necessary in the next few days to have the General Secretaries together here where they can be seen rather than scattered all over the hall.

Thirdly I would perhaps like once more to ask our Dornach friends—truly I have nothing personal against them—to take their seats next door in the ‘summer villa’.⁴⁴ I know it is most inhospitable in this rainy and snowy weather, but all we can do is ask our Dornach friends to put up with the rain so that the friends from further afield can sit here in the hall away from the rain.

Also I would like to mention that from today the upper canteen will be open in the evening for those friends who are quartered in the dormitories or other inhospitable places, so that they may have somewhere to go that is heated. Food and drink will not be served then, but I hope that the conversations that can take place there will be all the more stimulating and encouraging. So although it will not be possible to quench hunger and thirst, it will be possible to keep as warm as may be in the evenings after my lecture until 11 o'clock at night.

Furthermore I want to draw your attention to the following: Mr Pyle in the most admirable way has modelled a very fine money-box⁴⁵ which he has had produced. You will find these money-boxes outside the doors. If you look at them carefully you will find that the beautiful forms tempt you to want to own such a money-box yourselves. They are for sale, so you can buy one and take it home and put something in it every day. When it is full you can use what you have collected to put towards the re-building of the Goetheanum, or for any other purposes related to the Goetheanum. Let me point out that even if you only put in 10 Rappen every day—think what you might spend this on each day—by the end of the year you will have saved quite a tidy sum. I can see my respected friends here are already working out how much! You will find that it will be a worthwhile amount. But I don't want to encourage you to put in only 10 Rappen. I would rather you put in whatever amount you consider proper, or whatever you feel obliged to put in even if you don't think it proper.

Those who find it difficult for one reason or another to take a money-box home with them will see that similar money-boxes have been set out here into which they may put something. Naturally if you do not have your own money-box to take home, it would be a good thing if you could delve deeply into your purse while you are here, so that these money-boxes may be filled. We shall have no trouble in seeing to it that they are rapidly emptied.

Finally I would please ask that spectators at the Christmas Plays refrain from booking their seats for the evening lectures.

You see, without all these many wishes—let us not call them prohibitions—we shall be unable to keep the Conference going in an orderly manner.

Now, my dear friends, I adjourn this meeting until the appointed hour tomorrow.

• 44. This designation for the extension built on to the carpentry workshop for the occasion of the Christmas Conference referred to ‘the chilly draught which blew there permanently’ (Ernst Lehrs Gelebte Erwartung, Stuttgart, 1979).
• 45. On the basis of a pencil drawing by Rudolf Steiner.

Notes by Ida Knoch with additions by Lidia Gentilli-Arenson-Baratto and memories by Karl Rittersbacher

Father on a chair wreathed with roses and greenery; Gretchen, Paula and I beside him.

One to seven hammer blows at the beginning and end, otherwise always seven instead of the usual three. Prayer and so on as usual.

I know that I speak from the heart and feelings of all when I first address these words to our dear brother Günther Wagner. (Reading of the mantric lines):

The soul's pilgrimage on earth
leads to steep mountain peaks
where the sharp stones of life
They are her words, nothing else
But riddles and questions,
Which awaken longing mightily:
Only when in the soul's mountain huts
Where a calm spirit reigns
The solution to the riddles beckons
And calm the forces of desire:
Then spiritual fruits ripen
Into seeds for the eternities.

In your pilgrimage of life
Directing the spiritual eye
These words appear to me
As a sign of your being.

Many weeks ago I was already quite certain that such an intimate ceremony would take place today, but I did not know what I would say until this morning, when I opened my heart to the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings to ask for their blessing for our dear brother Günther Wagner. Before what was seen there is related, I know that I am one with you, my dear sisters and brothers, in the expression of the love and loyalty we feel for our dear and loyal brother Günther Wagner.

Dr. Steiner emphasizes how Father advised and helped everyone who approached him seeking comfort, strength and courage, how he worked everywhere in harmony, seeking harmony, with the same love and faithfulness as his soul, how he radiated all that he had gained through a long, hard, truth-seeking life as love; how he consecrated his strength to our Theosophical Society. Dr. Steiner fondly remembers many moments when he was able to be close to Father — and so on, and so on.

It was not so much words that came to Dr. Steiner from the wise masters of the East when he opened his heart to them in meditation this morning, but more images, indirect images, so to speak. In a community like the one gathered here, he could tell something like what he would say now.

First, images appeared, from which others emerged. There Dr. Steiner saw a member of the Order of St. Benedict, surrounded by other members of the same order; these were the abbot - Sinibald - and the elders of this monastic order. They were sitting together, as rarely happens, not absorbed in exercises or other prescriptions, but exchanging more personal thoughts. And the abbot, who became abbot of this order in 1227, told his elders about his father, how much he had clung to him, that this father had gone to Palestine with the leader of the Third Crusade, how the father had told of the many hardships, how he had gone through privations and suffering, how he had fought; but the father also told of life in the Orient, and for example how glass was made there, how the color purple was produced. And these stories of life in the Orient and its peculiarities made a great impression on the listening boy, even more than the stories of the battles.

The father of the abbot also spoke of the fact that he and his fellow fighters had a strong feeling that what Frederick Barbarossa did in the crusade meant more than just the outward events would suggest. The father, who was a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, stood by as the body of the red-bearded emperor was pulled out of the Saleph River, and he knew that even though three distinct parts of the body were buried near Tyre, near Antioch, and near Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, his soul had nevertheless flown back to Europe. The father had been a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and the abbot always had a great affection for them, as well as for the Teutonic knights, although his uncle, his father's brother (?), was opposed to the order.

During his theological studies, the abbot often wondered whether the idea was behind things, about this Aristotelian idea, or whether the idea existed before things, as Plato says. — He entered the Order of St. Benedict, prompted by long-standing family connections, and was also destined from the outset for a leading position in it.

During the exercises, which lasted from four o'clock in the morning until sunset, it was very rare for the abbot and the elders of his order to come together for such a personal exchange of ideas, and everyone left, reflecting on what they had heard. The abbot sat alone for a long time, pondering what had been said. And when he then walked back along the path, the meditation path, with a look of kindness and love, he met an eight-year-old boy who also wore the robe of St. Benedict. Perhaps the boy was inspired by the mild gaze he saw in the abbot's eyes to ask a question that we can only describe as impertinent. — The image is strongly emotional at this point. — This eight-year-old boy in the robes of St. Benedict said to the abbot: “Reverend Father, I cannot form a mental image of God.” The abbot looked kindly at the boy after this bold speech; he did not answer, but walked away in silence. And only when he was so far away that the boy could no longer hear him did the abbot say, as if to himself: “It will take a long time before one can form a correct mental image of God.”

My dear sisters and brothers, this is what occurred to me when I turned to the wise masters of the East, asking for blessings for our dear brother Günther Wagner. Everyone can now think of what they believe to be right according to their disposition.

When the Rosicrucian conclusion was reached, Dr. Steiner placed three red roses next to the box with the blessed water and so on, and at the end he waved the censer over them several times extra. Then he said: “Now our dear Sister Helene Lehmann will take these three roses to our dear brother Günther Wagner as a token of our love and loyalty.”

When Dr. Steiner had finally carried the box away and then passed by father again, he kissed him on each cheek.

In a transcription of Ida Knoch's notes by Lidia Gentilli-Arenson-Baratto, the following additional personal comment can be found at the end:

The red book from which Dr. Steiner read was a red book that Paula Hübbe-Schleiden had given him (said Gretchen Wagner). She then asked me who the boy would have become, which she never knew. I asked her in return whether she believed or had heard who the boy would be in this life. She replied very firmly that everyone knew at the time, and it was generally said that it was Dr. Steiner himself, only she would like to know who the boy had become, she didn't know, and no one told her at the time. That concluded our conversation, which took place today. - February 27, 1960.

In addition, the following personal memories of Karl Rittersbacher of conversations with Günther Wagner are available, which he added to his typewritten transcription of Ida Knoch's notes of this hour by Nelly von Lichtenberg:

I had several personal encounters with Mr. Günther Wagner through Miss Mathilde Hoyer, who founded the first class of the Freie Waldorfschule Hannover (1926) at Easter 1926 (I have written a report about this in the newsletter of the General Anthroposophical Society “What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society”, No. 43 and 44 of October 21 and 28, 1928, following a suggestion by Mrs. Marie Steiner).

Mr. Wagner had founded a paint factory in Hannover. During a visit to his home in the fall of 1927, he told me that the colors were still rubbed by hand and that he had 20 employees. I also learned that at the age of 50, he handed over the factory, which had grown to around 200 workers, to his son-in-law, who had been his senior traveler: Fritz Beindorff, who later became a senator in Hannover. This grand master of a freemason association had no time for the newly founded Free Waldorf School. I learned this drastically during a personal visit to his office.

Mr. Günther Wagner, as he told me, lived on a pension he received in Berlin and Lugano. In Berlin, he worked as a librarian for the Theosophical Society, translating literature from Indian into German. He and some friends became aware of Dr. Rudolf Steiner and reported how he was instrumental in helping the Theosophical Society in Germany come into being. To do so, seven branches had to exist, each with at least seven members. This was achieved by recruiting in Leipzig. Then Dr. Rudolf Steiner was appointed as Secretary General. When Günther Wagner and his nurse, Paula Hübbe-Schleiden, née Stryczek, separated in 1912/13, it was clear to them that they could only go with Rudolf Steiner (literally to me!).

After the above conversation – as Günther Wagner said during a visit – Rudolf Steiner asked him into the next room and said: “You were the abbot and I was the boy, your student. And so we meet again. And I then went from Monte Cassino, where this happened, to Cologne later.

Günther Wagner added: “I went to Monte Cassino, but I had no memories whatsoever. I told Emil Bock all this. He said to me: But Mr. Wagner, you should have put on a Benedictine robe and climbed up the old serpentine paths to remember something.”

Mr. Wagner had a calm, bright look in his eyes that radiated kindness and bore witness to a deep inner peace. Even in old age, he still enjoyed playing the piano (Schubert, Impromptu by heart). He had a package of letters from Rudolf Steiner.

In a late lecture on karma, Rudolf Steiner called him the “doyen of the Anthroposophical Society” (literally: “... and perhaps the oldest member of the Anthroposophical Society, who is here today to our great joy – Mr. Günther Wagner, whom I would like to warmly welcome [like a kind of senior of the Anthroposophical Society here] – will remember how strong the resistance was at the time for much of what I incorporated into the Anthroposophical Society from the beginning. —- It was particularly about “practical karma exercises”. - See the karma lecture of September 5, 1924, beginning, volume IV, esoteric considerations, complete edition!).

Rudolf Steiner is said to have given several members karmic hints earlier on the 70th birthday.

Günther Wagner regretted that he could not financially support the newly founded school, since he only had the pension granted to him by his son-in-law. He also lived in the Black Forest in Frauenalb, where Fräulein Hoyer and I also visited him.

When Mrs. Marie Steiner visited the then small school (two classes) in September 1927, Günther Wagner and Paula Hübbe-Schleiden were present. (See report in the newsletter!)

Marie Steiner invited the small college to lunch at the hotel.

A personal word: the content shared here, especially regarding karmic facts, meant for us at the time a concretization of our thinking about destiny and the laws of destiny. It sounded simple and seemed unmythically realistic.

This lecture, the 9th of 12 lectures published under is: A Living Knowledge of Nature, the Fall of the Intellect into Sin, the Spiritual Resurrection.

You have seen from these lectures that I feel duty bound to speak at this time about a consciousness that must be attained if we are to accomplish one of the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society. And to begin with today, let me point to the fact that this consciousness can only be acquired if the whole task of culture and civilization is really understood today from the spiritual-scientific point of view. I have taken the most varied opportunities to try, from this point of view, to characterize what is meant by the fall of man, to which all religions refer. The religions speak of this fall of man as lying at the starting point of the historical development of mankind; and in various ways through the years we have seen how this fall of man—which I do not need to characterize in more detail today—is an expression of something that once occurred in the course of human evolution: man's becoming independent of the divine spiritual powers that guided him.

We know in fact that the consciousness of this independence first arose as the consciousness soul appeared in human evolution in the first half of the fifteenth century. We have spoken again and again in recent lectures about this point in time. But basically the whole human evolution depicted in myths and history is a kind of preparation for this significant moment of growing awareness of our freedom and independence.

This moment is a preparation for the fact that earthly humanity is meant to acquire a decision-making ability that is independent of the divine spiritual powers. And so the religions point to a cosmic-earthly event that replaces the soul-spiritual instincts—which alone were determinative in what humanity did in very early times—with just this kind of human decision making. As I said, we do not want to speak in more detail about this now, but the religions did see the matter in this way: With respect to his moral impulses the human being has placed himself in a certain opposition to his guiding spiritual powers, to the Yahweh or Jehovah powers, let us say, speaking in Old Testament terms. If we look at this interpretation, therefore, we can present the matter as though, from a definite point in his evolution, man no longer felt that divine spiritual powers were active in him and that now he himself was active.

Consequently, with respect to his overall moral view of himself, man felt that he was sinful and that he would have been incapable of falling into sin if he had remained in his old state, in a state of instinctive guidance by divine spiritual powers. Whereas he would then have remained sinless, incapable of sinning, like a mere creature of nature, he now became capable of sinning through this independence from the divine spiritual powers. And then there arose in humanity this consciousness of sin: As a human being I am sinless only when I find my way back again to the divine spiritual powers. What I myself decide for myself is sinful per se, and I can attain a sinless state only by finding my way back again: to the divine spiritual powers.

This consciousness of sin then arose most strongly in the Middle Ages. And then human intellectuality, which previously had not yet been a separate faculty, began to develop. And so, in a certain way, what man developed as his intellect, as an intellectual content, also became infected—in a certain sense rightly—with this consciousness of sin. It is only that one did not say to oneself that the intellect, arising in human evolution since the third or fourth century A.D., was also now infected by the consciousness of sin. In the Scholastic wisdom of the Middle Ages, there evolved, to begin with, an ‘unobserved’ consciousness of sin in the intellect.

This Scholastic wisdom of the Middle Ages said to itself: No matter how effectively one may develop the intellect as a human being, one can still only grasp outer physical nature with it. Through mere intellect one can at best prove that divine spiritual powers exist; but one can know nothing of these divine spiritual powers; one can only have faith in these divine spiritual powers. One can have faith in what they themselves have revealed either through the Old or the New Testament.

So the human being, who earlier had felt himself to be sinful in his moral life—‘sinful’ meaning separated from the divine spiritual powers—this human being, who had always felt morally sinful, now in his Scholastic wisdom felt himself to be intellectually sinful, as it were. He attributed to himself an intellectual ability that was effective only in the physical, sense-perceptible world. He said to himself: As a human being I am too base to be able to ascent through my own power into those regions of knowledge where I can also grasp the spirit.

We do not notice how connected this intellectual fall of man is to his general moral fall. But what plays into our view of human intellectuality is the direct continuation of his moral fall.

When the Scholastic wisdom passes over then into the modern scientific view of the world, the connection with the old moral fall of man is completely forgotten. And, as I have often emphasized, the strong connection actually present between modern natural-scientific concepts and the old Scholasticism is in fact denied altogether. In modern natural science one states that man has limits to his knowledge, that he must be content to extend his view of things only out upon the sense-perceptible physical world. A Dubois-Reymond, for example, and others state that the human being has limits to what he can investigate, has limits to his whole thinking, in fact.

But that is a direct continuation of Scholasticism. The only difference is that Scholasticism believed that because the human intellect is limited, one must raise oneself to something different from the intellect—to revelation, in fact—when one wants to know something about the spiritual world.

The modern natural-scientific view takes half, not the whole; it lets revelation stay where it is, but then places itself completely upon a standpoint that is possible only if one presupposes revelation. This standpoint is that the human ability to know is too base to ascend into the divine spiritual worlds.

But at the time of Scholasticism, especially at the high point of Scholasticism in the middle of the Middle Ages, the same attitude of soul was not present as that of today. One assumed then that when the human being used his intellect he could gain knowledge of the sense-perceptible world; and he sensed that he still experienced something of a flowing together of himself with the sense-perceptible world when he employed his intellect. And one believed then that if one wanted to know something about the spiritual one must ascend to revelation, which in fact could no longer be understood, i.e., could no longer be grasped intellectually. But the fact remained unnoticed—and this is where we must direct our attention!—that spirituality flowed into the concepts that the Schoolmen, set up about the sense world. The concepts of the Schoolmen were not as unspiritual as ours are today. The Schoolmen still approached the human being with the concepts that they formed for themselves about nature, so that the human being was not yet completely excluded from knowledge. For, at least in the Realist stream, the Schoolmen totally believed that thoughts are given us from outside, that they are not fabricated from within. Today we believe that thoughts are not given from outside but are fabricated from within. Through this fact we have gradually arrived at a point in our evolution where we have dropped everything that does not relate to the outer sense world.

And, you see, the Darwinian theory of evolution is the final consequence of this dropping of everything unrelated to the outer sense world. Goethe made a beginning for a real evolutionary teaching that extended as far as man. When you take up his writing in this direction, you will see that he only stumbled when he tried to take up the human being. He wrote excellent botanical studies. He wrote many correct things about animals. But something always went wrong when he tried to take up the human being. The intellect that is trained only upon the sense world is not adequate to the study of man. Precisely Goethe shows this to a high degree. Even Goethe can say nothing about the human being. His teaching on metamorphosis does not extend as far as the human being. You know how, within the anthroposophical world view, we have had to broaden this teaching on metamorphosis, entirely in a Goethean sense, but going much further.

What has modern intellectualism actually achieved in natural science? It has only come as far as grasping the evolution of animals up to the apes, and then added on the human being without being able inwardly to encompass him. The closer people came to the higher animals, so to speak, the less able their concepts became to grasp anything. And it is absolutely untrue to say, for example, that they even understand the higher animals. They only believe that they understand them.

And so our understanding of the human being gradually dropped completely out of our understanding of the world, because understanding dropped out of our concepts. Our concepts became less and less spiritual, and the unspiritual concepts that regard the human being as the mere endpoint of the animal kingdom represent the content of all our thinking today. These concepts are already instilled into our children in the early grades, and our inability to look at the essential being of man thus becomes part of the general culture.

Now you know that I once attempted to grasp the whole matter of knowledge at another point. This was when I wrote The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and its prelude Truth and Science although the first references are present already in my The Science of Knowing: Outline of an Epistemology Implicit in the Goethean World View written in the 1880's. I tried to turn the matter in a completely different direction. I tried to show what the modern person can raise himself to, when—not in a traditional sense, but out of free inner activity—he attains pure thinking, when he, attains this pure, willed thinking which is something positive and real, when this thinking works in him. And in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I sought, in fact, to find our moral impulses in this purified thinking.

So that our evolution proceeded formerly in such a way that we more and more viewed man as being too base to act morally, and we extended this baseness also into our intellectuality.

Expressing this graphically, one could say: The human being developed in such a way that what he knew about himself became less and less substantial. It grew thinner and thinner (light color). But below the surface, something continued to develop (red) that lives, not in abstract thinking, but in real thinking.

Now, at the end of the 19th century, we had arrived at the point of no longer noticing at all what I have drawn here in red; and through what I have drawn here in a light color, we no longer believed ourselves connected with anything of a divine spiritual nature. Man's consciousness of sin had torn him out of the divine spiritual element; the historical forces that were emerging could not take him back. But with The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity I wanted to say: Just look for once into the depths of the human soul and you will find that something has remained with us: pure thinking, namely, the real, energetic thinking that originates from man himself, that is no longer mere thinking, that is filled with experience, filled with feeling, and that ultimately expresses itself in the will. I wanted to say that this thinking can become the impulse for moral action. And for this reason I spoke of the moral intuition which is the ultimate outcome of what otherwise is only moral imagination. But what is actually intended by The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity can become really alive only if we can reverse the path that we took as we split ourselves off more and more from the divine spiritual content of the world, split ourselves off all the way down to intellectuality. When we again find the spirituality in nature, then we will also find the human being again.

I therefore once expressed in a lecture that I held many years ago in Mannheim that mankind, in fact, in its present development, is on the point of reversing the fall of man. What I said was hardly noticed, but consisted in the following: The fall of man was understood to be a moral fall, which ultimately influenced the intellect also. The intellect felt itself to be at the limits of its knowledge. And it is basically one and the same thing—only in a somewhat different form—if the old theology speaks of sin or if Dubois-Reymond speaks of the limits of our ability to know nature. I indicated how one must grasp the spiritual—which, to be sure, has been filtered down into pure thinking—and how, from there, one can reverse the fall of man. I showed how, through spiritualizing the intellect, one can work one's way back up to the divine spiritual.

Whereas in earlier ages one pointed to the moral fall of man and thought about the development of mankind in terms of this moral fall of man, we today must think about an ideal of mankind: about the rectifying of the fall of man along a path of the spiritualization of our knowing activity, along a path of knowing the spiritual content of the world again. Through the moral fall of man, the human being distanced himself from the gods. Through the path of knowledge he must find again the pathway of the gods. Man must turn his descent into an ascent. Out of the purely grasped spirit of his own being, man must understand, with inner energy and power, the goal, the ideal, of again taking the fall of man seriously. For, the fall of man should be taken seriously. It extends right into what natural science says today. We must find the courage to add to the fall of man, through the power of our knowing activity, a raising of man out of sin. We must find the courage to work out a way to raise ourselves out of sin, using what can come to us through a real and genuine spiritual-scientific knowledge of modern times.

One could say, therefore: If we look back into the development of mankind, we see that human consciousness posits a fall of man at the beginning of the historical development of mankind on earth. But the fall must be made right again at some point: It must be opposed by a raising of man. And this raising of man can only go forth out of the age of the consciousness soul. In our day, therefore, the historic moment has arrived when the highest ideal of mankind must be the spiritual raising of ourselves out of sin. Without this, the development of mankind can proceed no further.

That is what I once discussed in that lecture in Mannheim. I said that, in modern times, especially in natural-scientific views, an intellectual fall of man has occurred, in addition to the moral fall of man. And this intellectual fall is the great historical sign that a spiritual raising of man must begin.

But what does this spiritual raising of man mean? It means nothing other, in fact, than really understanding Christ. Those who still understood something about him, who had not—like modern theology—lost Christ completely, said of Christ that he came to earth, that he incarnated into an earthly body as a being of a higher kind. They took up what was proclaimed about Christ in written traditions. They spoke, in fact, about the mystery of Golgotha.

Today the time has come when Christ must be understood. But we resist this understanding of Christ, and the form this resistance takes is extraordinarily characteristic. You see, if even a spark of what Christ really is still lived in those who say that they understand Christ, what would happen? They would have to be clear about the fact that Christ, as a heavenly being, descended to earth; he therefore did not speak to man in an earthly language, but in a heavenly one. We must therefore make an effort to understand him. We must make an effort to speak a cosmic, extraterrestrial language. That means that we must not limit our knowledge merely to the earth, for, the earth was in fact a new land for Christ. We must extend our knowledge out into the cosmos. We must learn to understand the elements. We must learn to understand the movements of the planets. We must learn to understand the star constellations, and their influence on what happens on earth. Then we draw near to the language that Christ spoke.

That is something, however, that coincides with our spiritual raising of man. For why was man reduced to understanding only what lives on earth? Because he was conscious of sin, in fact, because he considered himself too base to be able to grasp the world in its extraterrestrial spirituality. And that is actually why people speak as though man can know nothing except the earthly. I characterized this yesterday by saying: We understand a fish only in a bowl, and a bird only in a cage. Certainly there is no consciousness present in our civilized natural science that the human being can raise himself above this purely earthly knowledge; for, this science mocks any effort to go beyond the earthly. If one even begins to speak about the stars, the terrible mockery sets in right away, as a matter of course, from the natural-scientific side.

If we want to hear correct statements about the relation of man to the animals, we must already turn our eye to the extraterrestrial world, for only the plants are still explainable in earthly terms; the animals are not. Therefore I had to say earlier that we do not even understand the apes correctly, that we can no longer explain the animals. If one wants to understand the animals, one must take recourse to the extraterrestrial, for the animals are ruled by forces that are extraterrestrial. I showed you this yesterday with respect to the fish. I told you how moon and sun forces work into the water and shape him out of the water, if I may put it so. And in the same way, the bird out of the air. As soon as one turns to the elements, one also meets the extraterrestrial. The whole animal world is explainable in terms of the extraterrestrial. And even more so the human being. But when one begins to speak of the extraterrestrial, then the mockery sets in at once.

The courage to speak again about the extraterrestrial must grow within a truly spiritual-scientific view; for, to be a spiritual scientist today is actually more a matter of courage than of intellectuality. Basically it is a moral issue, because what must be opposed is something moral: the moral fall of man, in fact.

And so we must say that we must in fact first learn the language of Christ, the language ton ouranon, the language of the heavens, in Greek terms. We must relearn this language in order to make sense out of what Christ wanted to do on earth.

Whereas up till now one has spoken about Christianity and described the history of Christianity, the point now is to understand Christ, to understand him as an extraterrestrial being. And that is identical with what we can call the ideal of raising ourselves from sin.

Now, to be sure, there is something very problematical about formulating this ideal, for you know in fact that the consciousness of sin once made people humble. But in modern times they are hardly ever humble. Often those who think themselves the most humble are the most proud of all. The greatest pride today is evident in those who strive for a so-called ‘simplicity’ in life. They set themselves above everything that is sought by the humble soul that lifts itself inwardly to real, spiritual truths, and they say: Everything must be sought in utter simplicity. Such naive natures—and they also regard themselves as naive natures—are often the most proud of all today. But nevertheless, during the time of real consciousness of sin there once were humble people; humility was still regarded as something that mattered in human affairs. And so, without justification, pride has arisen. Why? Yes, I can answer that in the same words I used here recently. Why has pride arisen? It has arisen because one has not heard the words “Huckle, get up!” [From the Oberufer Christmas plays.] One simply fell asleep. Whereas earlier one felt oneself, with full intensity and wakefulness, to be a sinner, one now fell into a gentle sleep and only dreamed still of a consciousness of sin. Formerly one was awake in one's consciousness of sin; one said to oneself: Man is sinful if he does not undertake actions that will again bring him onto the path to the divine spiritual powers. One was awake then. One may have different views about this today, but the fact is that one was awake in one's acknowledgment of sinfulness. But then one dozed off, and the dreams arrived, and. the dreams murmured: Causality rules in the world; one event always causes the following one. And so finally we pursue what we see in the starry heavens as attraction and repulsion of the heavenly bodies; we take this all the way down into the molecule; and then we imagine a kind of little cosmos of molecules and atoms.

And the dreaming went further. And then the dream concluded by saying: We can know nothing except what outer sense experience gives us. And it was labeled ‘supernaturalism’ if anyone went beyond sense experiences. But where supernaturalism begins, science ends.

And then, at gatherings of natural scientists, these dreams were delivered in croaking tirades like Dubois-Reymond's Limits of Knowledge. And then, when the dream's last notes were sounded—a dream does not always resound so agreeably; sometimes it is a real nightmare—when the dream concluded with “Where supernaturalism begins, science ends,” then not only the speaker but the whole natural-scientific public sank down from the dream into blessed sleep. One no longer needed any inner impulse for active inner knowledge. One could console oneself by accepting that there are limits, in fact, to what we can know about nature, and that we cannot transcend these limits. The time had arrived when one could now say: “Huckle, get up! The sky is cracking!” But our modern civilization replies: “Let it crack! It's old enough to have cracked before!” Yes, this is how things really are. We have arrived at a total sleepiness, in our knowing activity.

But into this sleepiness there must sound what is now being declared by spiritual-scientific anthroposophical knowledge. To begin with, there must arise in knowledge the realization that man is in a position to set up the ideal within himself that we can raise ourselves from sin. And that in turn is connected with the fact that along with a possible waking up, pride—which up till now has only been present, to be sure, in a dreamlike way—will grow more than ever. And (I say this of course without making any insinuations) it has sometimes been the case that in anthroposophical circles the raising of man has not yet come to full fruition. Sometimes, in fact, this pride has reached—I will not say a respectable—a quite unrespectable size. For, it simply lies in human nature for pride to flourish rather than the positive side.

And so, along with the recognition that the raising of man is a necessity, we must also see that we now need to take up into ourselves in full consciousness the training in humility which we once exercised. And we can do that. For, when pride arises out of knowledge, that is always a sign that something in one's knowledge is indeed terribly wrong. For when knowledge is truly present, it makes one humble in a completely natural way. It is out of pride that one sets up a program of reform today, when in some social movement, let's say, or in the woman's movement one knows ahead of time what is possible, right, necessary, and best, and then sets up a program, point by point. One knows everything about the matter. One does not think of oneself at all as proud when each person declares himself to know it all. But in true knowledge, one remains pretty humble, for one knows that true knowledge is acquired only in the course of time, to use a trivial expression.

If one lives in knowledge, one knows, with what difficulty—sometimes over decades—one has attained the simplest truths. There, quite inwardly through the matter itself, one does not become proud. But nevertheless, because a full consciousness is being demanded precisely of the Anthroposophical Society for humanity's great ideal today of raising ourselves from sin, watchfulness—not Hucklism, but watchfulness—must also be awakened against any pride that might arise.

We need today a strong inclination to truly grasp the essential being of knowledge so that, by virtue of a few anthroposophical catchwords like ‘physical body,’ ‘etheric body,’ ‘reincarnation,’ et cetera, we do not immediately become paragons of pride. This watchfulness with respect to ordinary pride must really be cultivated as a new moral content. This must be taken up into our meditation. For if the raising of man is actually to occur, then the experiences we have with the physical world must lead us over into the spiritual world. For, these experiences must lead us to offer ourselves devotedly, with the innermost powers of our soul. They must not lead us, however, to dictate program truths. Above all, they must penetrate into a feeling of responsibility for every single word that one utters about the spiritual world. Then the striving must reign to truly carry up into the realm of spiritual knowledge the truthfulness that, to begin with, one acquired for oneself in dealing with external, sense-perceptible facts. Whoever has not accustomed himself to remaining with the facts in the physical sense world and to basing himself upon them also does not accustom himself to truthfulness when speaking about the spirit. For in the spiritual world, one can no longer accustom oneself to truthfulness; one must bring it with one.

But you see, on the one hand today, due to the state of consciousness in our civilization, facts are hardly taken into account, and, on the other hand, science simply suppresses those facts that lead onto the right path. Let us take just one out of many such facts: There are insects that are themselves vegetarian when fully grown. They eat no meat, not even other insects. When the mother insect is ready to lay her fertilized eggs, she lays them into the body of another insect, that is then filled with the eggs that the insect mother has inserted into it. The eggs are now in a separate insect. Now the eggs do not hatch out into mature adults, but as little worms. But at first they are in the other insect. These little worms, that will only later metamorphose into adult insects, are not vegetarian. They could not be vegetarian. They must devour the flesh of the other insect. Only when they emerge and transform themselves are they able to do without the flesh of other insects. Picture that: the insect mother is herself a vegetarian. She knows nothing in her consciousness about eating meat, but she lays her eggs for the next generation into another insect. And furthermore; if these insects were now, for example, to eat away the stomach of the host insect, they would soon have nothing more to eat, because the host insect would die. If they ate away any vital organ, the insect could not live. So what do these insects do when they hatch out? They avoid all the vital organs and eat only what the host insect can do without and still live. Then, when these little insects mature, they crawl out, become vegetarian, and proceed to do what their mother did.

Yes, one must acknowledge that intelligence holds sway in nature. And if you really study nature, you can find this intelligence holding sway everywhere. And you will then think more humbly about your own intelligence, for first of all, it is not as great as the intelligence ruling in nature, and secondly, it is only like a little bit of water that one has drawn from a lake and put into a water jug. The human being, in fact, is just such a water jug, that has drawn intelligence from nature. Intelligence is everywhere in nature; everything, everywhere is wisdom. A person who ascribes intelligence exclusively to himself is about as clever as someone who declares: You're saying that there is water out there in the lake or in the brook? Nonsense! There is no water in them. Only in my jug is there any water. The jug created the water.

So, the human being thinks that he creates intelligence, whereas he only draws intelligence from the universal sea of intelligence.

It is necessary, therefore, to truly keep our eye on the facts of nature. But facts are left out when the Darwinian theory is promoted, when today's materialistic views are being formulated; for, the facts contradict the modern materialistic view at every point. Therefore one suppresses these facts. One recounts them, to be sure, but actually aside from science, anecdotally. Therefore they do not gain the validity in our general education that they must have. And so one not only does not truly present the facts that one has, but adds a further dishonesty by leaving out the decisive facts, i.e., by suppressing them.

But if the raising of man is to be accomplished, then we must educate ourselves in truthfulness in the sense world first of all and then carry this education, this habitude, with us into the spiritual world. Then we will also be able to be truthful in the spiritual world. Otherwise we will tell people the most unbelievable stories about the spiritual world. If we are accustomed in the physical world to being imprecise, untrue, and inexact, then we will recount nothing but untruths about the spiritual world.

. You see, if one grasps in this way the ideal whose reality can become conscious to the Anthroposophical Society, and if what arises from this consciousness becomes a force in our Society, then, even in people who wish us the worst, the opinion that the Anthroposophical Society could be a sect will disappear. Now of course our opponents will say all kinds of things that are untrue. But as long as we are giving cause for what they say, it cannot be a matter of indifference to us whether their statements are true or not.

Now, through its very nature, the Anthroposophical Society has thoroughly worked its way out of the sectarianism in which it certainly was caught up at first, especially while it was still connected to the Theosophical Society. It is only that many members to this day have not noticed this fact and love sectarianism. And so it has come about that even older anthroposophical members who were beside themselves when the Anthroposophical Society was transformed from a sectarian one into one that was conscious of its world task, even those who were beside themselves have quite recently gone aside again. The Movement for Religious Renewal, when it follows its essential nature, may be ever so far removed from sectarianism. But this Movement for Religious Renewal has given even a number of older anthroposophists cause to say to themselves: Yes, the sectarian element is being eradicated more and more from the Anthroposophical Society. But we can cultivate it again here! And so precisely through anthroposophists, the Movement for Religious Renewal is being turned into the crassest sectarianism, which truly does not need to be the case.

One can see how, therefore, if the Anthroposophical Society wants to become a reality, we must positively develop the courage to raise ourselves again into the spiritual world. Then art and religion will flourish in the Anthroposophical Society. Although for now even our artistic forms have been taken from us [through the burning of the Goetheanum building on the night of December 31, 1922], these forms live on, in fact, in the being of the anthroposophical movement itself and must continually be found again, and ever again.

In the same way, a true religious deepening lives in those who find their way back into the spiritual world, who take seriously the raising of man. But what we must eradicate in ourselves is the inclination to sectarianism, for this inclination is always egotistical. It always wants to avoid the trouble of penetrating into the reality of the spirit and wants to settle for a mystical reveling that basically is an egotistical voluptuousness. And all the talk about the Anthroposophical Society becoming much too intellectual is actually based on the fact that those who say this want, indeed, to avoid the thoroughgoing experience of a spiritual content, and would much rather enjoy the egotistical voluptuousness of soulful reveling in a mystical, nebulous indefiniteness. Selflessness is necessary for true anthroposophy. It is mere egotism of soul when this true anthroposophy is opposed by anthroposophical members themselves who then all the more drive anthroposophy into something sectarian that is only meant, in fact, to satisfy a voluptuousness of soul that is egotistical through and through.

You see those are the things, with respect to our tasks, to which we should turn our attention. By doing so, we lose nothing of the warmth, the artistic sense, or the religious inwardness of our anthroposophical striving. But that will be avoided which must be avoided: the inclination to sectarianism. And this inclination to sectarianism, even though it often arrived in a roundabout way through pure cliquishness, has brought so much into the Society that splits it apart. But cliquishness also arose in the anthroposophical movement only because of its kinship—a distant one to be sure—with the sectarian inclination. We must return to the cultivation of a certain world consciousness so that only our opponents, who mean to tell untruths, can still call the Anthroposophical Society a sect. We must arrive at the point of being able to strictly banish the sectarian character trait from the anthroposophical movement. But we should banish it in such a way that when something arises like the Movement for Religious Renewal, which is not meant to be sectarian, it is not gripped right away by sectarianism just because one can more easily give it a sectarian direction than one can the Anthroposophical Society itself.

Those are the things that we must think about keenly today. From the innermost being of anthroposophy, we must understand the extent to which anthroposophy can give us, not a sectarian consciousness, but rather a world consciousness. Therefore I had to speak these days precisely about the more intimate tasks of the Anthroposophical Society.

Those who join this school as members are in a completely different position than those who join the Anthroposophical Society. You become a member of this school after being a member of the Society for a sufficiently long time. You have come to know what anthroposophy wants, what it truly is. You have been able to form an opinion about what it can be worth to you. However, this means that the intention to join the school can be associated with the assumption of a range of duties and the awareness that one wants to be a representative of anthroposophical work.

In contrast to the way in which Anthroposophy is presented within the Anthroposophical Society, it is not only absurd, but also quite tasteless when the opposing side repeatedly makes the defamatory accusation that Anthroposophy wants to exert a suggestive influence on anyone. Anyone who is in Anthroposophy knows this very well, or at least can know it. When members who have left the Society claim this, they usually know themselves that what they claim is objectively untrue. In the Society, no one is led to anthroposophy with blinders on. Therefore, they cannot become a member of the School without fully understanding the context of what anthroposophy sees as its task.

Everyone should judge for themselves whether they want to become a member of the school based on what they have come to know as a member of the Anthroposophical Society. When the school's leadership speaks of the duties that its members take on, they can be completely clear about what is meant. It is not intended to imply anything other than that the school's leadership cannot fulfill its tasks if such duties are not taken on. The relationship between each member of the school and the leadership remains completely free, even if such duties are taken on. This is because the school leadership must also enjoy the freedom to act in accordance with the natural conditions of their work. They would not have this freedom if they were not allowed to say to those who are free to join or not to join the school: If I am to work with you, then you must take on the obligation to fulfill this or that condition.

This should actually be self-evident and need not be stated. But it must be said, because all too often we hear: Those who join the school must give up some of their “human freedoms”. When this is said by members of the society, it is not surprising when malicious opponents spread the slander that Anthroposophy is gradually turning its adherents into will-less tools of what some people with bad intentions want. Anyone who has taken an interest in the Society's work for a sufficiently long time knows that Anthroposophy would lose all meaning the moment it undertook anything that went against the independent, level-headed, insightful will of its members. Anthroposophy cannot truly achieve its goals with will-less tools. For, in order to truly come to it, it requires precisely the free will of those involved. (Continued in the next issue.)

This newsletter is titled “What's Going On in the Anthroposophical Society”. This title was given to it to suggest that in the future individual members should take a lively spiritual interest in everything that happens in the Society. This will only be possible if these members write to the editor of the journal, Albert Steffen, with everything they believe should be known not only to the individual member but to the whole Society. And this should know where anthroposophy is being worked on, how it is happening, how the work is being received, etc. The life that takes place in the individual groups should be able to come to life before the consciousness of the whole society. Letters in which members filled with interest for the life of the groups turn to the editorial team with their messages will then be processed by them. This will help to create a common consciousness in society. Only when members in New Zealand can find out what is happening in a group in Vienna will such a common consciousness be possible.

But this should not be the only thing. What is happening in the spiritual life of the present day outside of the Society should also be included in the common consciousness. There is spiritual life around every group in society. This or that view of the world and life is expressed, this or that great or small artistic, scientific, social, educational, etc. achievement comes to light. Much else will happen that must interest spiritually striving people. All this can be better judged from close quarters than from afar, according to its conditions, its nature, its implications. In their letters, the members of the groups should speak of what they can perceive from this point of view in the vicinity of their groups. Members whose profession takes them around the world should look with open eyes at “what is going on in the world”. They should then communicate this to the editorial team of the newsletter. In this way, “what is going on in the world” can become “what is going on in the Anthroposophical Society”. And we need a broad outlook. We need a keen interest in all the phenomena of life in the world. We need a healthy judgment in the Society about these phenomena.

In this respect, we in society must learn to think differently than has been done so far. By its very nature, anthroposophy does not tolerate any kind of sectarianism that narrow-mindedly shuts itself off from everything that others think and want. Anthroposophy only tolerates a broad heart for all human striving and life. And it can only be given the right form through an open eye for everything that is thought, willed, and done in the world.

The newsletter should become a reflection of this way of thinking in society. Through its existence, it should be a call to each individual member to keep asking themselves how they can contribute to the common thinking in the society. If the members see the newsletter in this way, the executive council of the Anthroposophical Society can make it what it should be according to the intentions of the Christmas Conference.

The lectures printed in this volume are those Rudolf Steiner gave to members of the Anthroposophical Society in Berlin immediately after the outbreak of the First World War. The atmosphere perceptible in these lectures was markedly influenced by the momentous events of the time. On the other hand the language is often personal and intimate, for a powerful bond existed between Rudolf Steiner and this group of people. From 1900–1902 onwards, Berlin had been the place where he developed and presented spiritual science in lectures and written works, and it was the centre of his activities in Germany. The Berlin ‘Branch’ of the Anthroposophical Society was the only one Rudolf and Marie Steiner (von Sivers) led in person until the General Anthroposophical Society was established in its new form at Dornach in Switzerland over Christmas and New Year 1923–24.

The year 1914 saw the collapse of many hopes. Austria declared war on Serbia on 28 July, and further declarations of war followed at a rapid pace. Germany declared war on Russia on 30 July and on France on 30 August. Great Britain then declared war on Germany on 4 August, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia on 6 August, and Great Britain on Austria-Hungary on 13 August.

One year previously, in the autumn of 1913, Rudolf Steiner had laid the foundation stone for the first Goetheanum (referred to as ‘the building' in a number of these lectures) on a hilltop in Dornach, near Basle in Switzerland. At the time when war broke out, artists and young people from many European nations had been working together for many weeks to bring Rudolf Steiner's artistic and architectural concepts to realization on that site in Dornach. Something very real had developed among them, a true fellowship in the reality of the spirit, irrespective of nationality or creed. The outbreak of war came as a tremendous shock to them and to the millions who lived in Europe.

This is the background to the lectures Rudolf Steiner gave in Berlin during 1914 and 1915. Particularly in the first lectures one is very much aware of his heart going out to all the people caught up in the maelstrom of war, people now finding themselves on opposite sides, facing great challenges both at home and in the trenches. Today different challenges have to be faced, but the wider context and true spiritual background given by Rudolf Steiner, the great challenge to humankind from the spiritual world which he was able to show to be behind the events of the day—these are as relevant now as they were then.

During the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society at Christmas 1923, Rudolf Steiner also reconstituted the “Esoteric School” which had originally functioned in Germany from 1904 until 1914, when the outset of the First World War made it's continuance impossible.

However, the original school was only for a relatively few selected individuals, whereas the new school was incorporated into the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

Rudolf Steiner was only able to give nineteen lessons – plus seven “recapitulation” lessons – for the First Class before his illness and death. His intention had been to develop three classes. After his death, the Anthroposophical Society's Executive Council was faced with the dilemma of what to do about the Esoteric School – to try to continue it without Rudolf Steiner, or not. He had not designated a successor. And what to do with the stenographic records of the Class lectures.

Rudolf Steiner had always insisted that the lectures were not to be published. In fact the members of the School were only permitted to copy the mantra—and not the text of the lectures—for their own personal contemplation. The dilemma was further complicated by the dispute between Marie Steiner – Rudolf Steiner's legal heir – and the rest of the Executive council, which claimed all of Steiner's lectures for the Society. (The dispute was eventually settled by the Swiss courts in favor of Mrs Steiner.)

The Anthroposophical Society was permitted to hand out manuscripts of the lectures to its so-called designated “readers”, who read each lecture to the members of the school in their particular area or country. This system is still practiced.

Marie Steiner wrote:

How can we preserve the treasure with which we have been entrusted? Not by hiding it away, thereby simply giving our enemies the opportunity to do with it what they will, but by trusting in the good spiritual powers and thereby giving new generations the possibility of receiving a stimulus in their souls that will kindle the spiritual light slumbering there, a light that will awaken in their souls what the powers of destiny have sown in them.”

Marie Steiner, letter of January 4, 1948

The lectures were published in German in manuscript book form in 1977 by the Rudolf Steiner Estate (Nachlassverwaltung – Marie Steiner's legal successor) in a limited edition and sold only upon written request to anthroposophists.

However, pirated editions containing errors and falsifications occurred to the extent that the Rudolf Steiner Estate decided to make the printed volumes in German generally available in 1992.

As far as we know, the lectures in English translation are appearing in public availability for the first time here in Southern Cross Review.

Frank Thomas Smith - Editor

During the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society at Christmas 1923, Rudolf Steiner also reconstituted the “Esoteric School” which had originally functioned in Germany from 1904 until 1914, when the outset of the First World War made its continuance impossible.

However, the original school was only for a relatively few selected individuals, whereas the new school was incorporated into the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

Rudolf Steiner was only able to give nineteen lessons—plus seven “recapitulation” lessons—for the First Class before his illness and death. His intention had been to develop three classes. After his death, the Anthroposophical Society's Executive Council was faced with the dilemma of what to do about the Esoteric School—to try to continue it without Rudolf Steiner, or not. He had not designated a successor. And what to do with the stenographic records of the Class lectures.

Rudolf Steiner had always insisted that the lectures were not to be published. In fact, the members of the School were only permitted to copy the mantra—and not the text of the lectures - for their own personal contemplation. The dilemma was further complicated by the dispute between Marie Steiner—Rudolf Steiner's legal heir—and the rest of the Executive council, which claimed all of Steiner's lectures for the Society. (The dispute was eventually settled by the Swiss courts in favor of Mrs. Steiner.)

The Anthroposophical Society was permitted to hand out manuscripts of the lectures to its so-called designated “readers”, who read each lecture to the members of the school in their particular area or country. This system is still practiced.

Marie Steiner wrote:

“How can we preserve the treasure with which we have been entrusted? Not by hiding it away, thereby simply giving our enemies the opportunity to do with it what they will, but by trusting in the good spiritual powers and thereby giving new generations the possibility of receiving a stimulus in their souls that will kindle the spiritual light slumbering there, a light that will awaken in their souls what the powers of destiny have sown in them.”

Marie Steiner, letter of January 4, 1948

The lectures were published in German in manuscript book form in 1977 by the Rudolf Steiner Estate (Nachlassverwaltung—Marie Steiner's legal successor) in a limited edition and sold only upon written request to anthroposophists.

However, pirated editions containing errors and falsifications occurred to the extent that the Rudolf Steiner Estate decided to make the printed volumes in German generally available in 1992.

As far as we know, the lectures in English translation are appearing in public availability for the first time here in Southern Cross Review.

Frank Thomas Smith—Editor

The Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum is striving to establish the sections already mentioned, but it would like to add a further one. This will be possible if the intentions of the Executive Council meet with a positive response on the part of the General Anthroposophical Society. In every age, young people have been in a certain opposition to old age. This gypsy truth comforts many people about the life phenomena within today's youth.

But this consolation could easily become a disaster.

We should understand the young from the “spirit of the present” in both their questionable aberrations and their all too justified striving for something other than what the old give them.

First of all, there is the youth that is pushed into an academic career by the circumstances of life. They are offered “science”. Solid, secure, fruitful science for the outer life. It would be nonsense, in the manner of many laymen, to rail against this science. But youth still freezes spiritually in the face of this science before it comes to recognize its solidity, its security, its fertility for the outer life.

Science owes its greatness to the strong opposition it has faced since the mid-19th century. At that time, people realized how easily man can sail into the uncertainty of knowledge when he rises from the lowlands of research to the heights of a world view. It was believed that chilling examples of such a rise had been experienced.

And so they wanted to free “science” from world view. It should stick to the “facts” in the valleys of nature and avoid the high roads of the mind.

When they were opposing the world view, they got a certain satisfaction out of the opposition. The opponents of worldviews in the mid-19th century were happy in their fighting mood.

Today's youth can no longer share this happiness. They can no longer stir up satisfying feelings in their souls by experiencing the fight against the “insecurity” and “crush” of worldviews.

For today there is simply nothing left to fight against. It is impossible to free “science” from “worldview.” For the worldview has died in the meantime.

But young people's feelings have made a discovery. Not at all a discovery of the intellect, but one that comes from the whole, undivided human nature.

Young people have discovered that without a worldview, it is impossible to live a dignified human life. Many of the old have heard the “evidence” against the worldview. They have submitted to the power of the evidence. The youth no longer pays intellectual heed to this power of evidence; but they instinctively sense the powerlessness of all intellectual proof where the human heart speaks from an invincible urge.

Science presents itself to young people in a dignified way; but it owes its dignity to its lack of world view. Young people long for a world view. But science needs young people.

At the Goetheanum, we would like to understand young people in such a way that we can seek the paths to a worldview with them. And we hope that in the light of the worldview, a true love for science will be generated. We don't want to lose science in world view reverie, but rather to gain it through a waking spiritual experience.

The leadership of the Anthroposophical Society asks young people if they want to understand it too. If it finds this understanding, then the “Section for the Spiritual Striving of Youth” can become something vital. (To be continued in the next issue.